


A (Revised) Guide to Lab Safety

by kwanology



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Crushes, Denial of Feelings, Developing Friendships, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Lab Partners, M/M, Oblivious Jeon Wonwoo, Roommates, Strangers to Lovers, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-13 20:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14755755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwanology/pseuds/kwanology
Summary: Goggles must be worn at all times, beakers and other glassware should be handled with care, and all spills should be attended to by the supervising professor or teaching assistant.Nowhere in the rules does it say that Wonwoo doesn't have the right to fight his lab partner.





	A (Revised) Guide to Lab Safety

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to somang for beta-ing and giving me suggestions on this fic!
> 
>  
> 
> **based on some very real and very odd experiences I had as a freshman in my own chemistry lab. please enjoy.

**_2Mg_ ** **_(s)_ ** **_+O_ ** **_2(g)_ ** **_→ 2MgO_ ** **_(s)_ **

_An exothermic reaction involving magnesium metal and oxygen gas. The light produced is extremely bright; caution should be taken when observing the reaction, as prolonged exposure can damage the eyes._

 

It takes a certain level of intellect to drift off during class and still manage to occupy your thoughts with the subject boring you to death, and Wonwoo fits the bill magnificently.

 

The lab professor is rambling on about flame heights from Bunsen burners at the front of the room, and his imagination moves to cavemen striking rocks together, igniting piles of sticks to create the very first fire. For what it’s worth, Wonwoo doesn’t really need to pay attention, as he’s already read the procedure. Being present right now is just a formality. As much as he loves science, he didn’t really think he’d be losing brain cells in a lab meant to enrich the learning experience.

 

So, general chemistry lab (so far) is not cracking up to be what he’d envisioned when he thought about starting his first college semester ever with aspirations of donning a white lab coat, chemistry-major aura emitting from him like a giant neon sign on his forehead that said, “Hi, I’m Jeon Wonwoo. I really like science. No, I’m not a nerd and yes, I totally watched Bill Nye on Dancing with the Stars.”

 

It’s been around 17 minutes and Wonwoo just wants to start the first experiment.

 

Someone at the bench behind him clicks a pen and unclicks it, then clicks it a few more times just for good measure. The blathering of the professor sounds like all of the adults on Charlie Brown; Wonwoo is usually a morning person and he has no trouble staying awake once he’s up, but this circumstance makes him wish he was still buried under his covers in his dorm listening to his roommate talk incoherently in his sleep.

 

Click. Click. Click. Wonwoo lacks a temper for the most part, but whoever is behind him must have a death wish with the rate at which he occupies his time by making noise with his pen.

 

A few more clicks. A few more unheard sentences from the professor. Click. Something about the air in the atmosphere interacting with certain elements. Click. Another description of the flames from a Bunsen burner. Click. Make sure the gas valve isn’t turned up too high, or you might risk searing your eyebrows off. Click.

 

Wonwoo swivels himself around on his stool to see who it is behind him just as he catches the last of the professor's words, instructing everyone to choose partners and to choose them well, as they stick for the entire semester.

 

There’s a pen in the boy’s hand and an absent look on his face. Wonwoo finds himself staring for a moment, unable to come up with the confrontational words he was sure he’d had waiting on the tip of his tongue. Around them, seats shift and people partner up and introduce themselves, the same old name-hometown-major questions, and Wonwoo can only swallow his mild annoyance and look at this guy carefully, noting the dark hair and the slight undercut that probably would have looked stupid on anyone else.

 

The confused expression stays when Wonwoo, upon noticing that they’re the only ones not doing anything, asks him without really thinking, “You don’t have a partner, do you?”

 

He looks to his left, then to his right, then forward at Wonwoo, who realizes he’s an idiot just as a grin breaks out on the guy’s face. “Obviously not.”

 

“Okay, no need to be an asshole. Do you—”

 

“—want to be partners?” Wonwoo raises his eyebrows when his question is interrupted and filled in for him. “With someone who just called me an asshole?” Great, he thinks, now he’ll say no and Wonwoo will be forced to work alone, all because he had to speak without thinking first. “Sure. I’ve been called worse,” he finishes, and he comes over to Wonwoo’s bench, grin looking painfully wide. How can anyone smile that hard and not be laughing?

 

“Cool,” Wonwoo manages to say, after staring dumbly at him for a few seconds too many. “Oh,” he turns, “I’m Wonwoo, sorry. I’m a freshman.”

 

“Soonyoung,” he throws back, flipping his lab notebook open and revealing the lack of written procedure, unlike Wonwoo’s, which sits open with two pages filled with instructions and safety information. “I’m a freshman, too. I think most of us are, actually. I don’t know a lot of sophomores who get stuck in general chemistry.”

 

Wonwoo lets himself relax while he opens up the bench drawer and reaches for the same pair of safety goggles that Soonyoung does, and it’s painfully awkward when they grab them at the same time. Being as passive as he is, he lets his partner have them, settling for the foggier pair. He mumbles a half-hearted apology that Soonyoung doesn’t even hear because he’s too busy messing with the gas valve and the hose connected to the Bunsen burner.

 

“Hey,” Wonwoo stops him before he can cause the entire lab to be engulfed in flames, “don’t play with that.”

 

“I’m not playing with it.”

 

“Then what are you doing?”

 

Soonyoung, as devilish of a smile as he has, doesn’t waste it. He actually looks sheepish when Wonwoo questions him, and for a moment, he feels sympathetic. “Sorry,” he says. “Just try not to whip this thing around. You don’t want to cause a gas leak or something.”

 

His partner takes a step back and holds up his hands in defense. The rubber gloves on his hands look comically small. He either grabbed a size bigger than he needed or he just has oddly tiny hands. Either way, Wonwoo isn’t concerned. He’s excited about the experiment they’re doing and no amount of strange partners can change that.

 

Soonyoung occupies himself with cleaning out the crucible, taking the small, stone bowl and lid to the sink and quickly rinsing it with water. “So,” he makes conversation and Wonwoo tries his best to listen and multitask. He uses tweezers to curl a strip of magnesium metal into a loose coil. “What’s your major?”

 

“Chemistry, actually.” Wonwoo smiles. “You?”

 

With a laugh, Soonyoung says, “Math. Wow,” he sighs, shutting the faucet off and grabbing a few paper towels to dry the crucible, “we’re both pretty boring then, huh?”

 

Should Wonwoo feel offended? Soonyoung technically insinuated that both of their majors are boring, and while Wonwoo can totally see how math is as uninteresting as they come, chemistry is definitely the opposite. “Speak for yourself,” he shoots back. “My major is fun.”

 

“If you call this fun, you’re crazy.”

 

“Oh? What’s so great about math?”

 

The crucible is dry now, and Soonyoung puts it on the counter for Wonwoo to take. He places the magnesium coil within it, setting the lid on top. His eyes skip down to the step they’re on in the procedure written in his notebook. “Not much,” Soonyoung goes on. He’s messing with the gas again. “I just find math more enjoyable than… whatever it is we’re doing here.” Wonwoo hums. “What is it we’re doing here, exactly?”

 

“Did you even _read_ the procedure?” God, this guy is a joke. Wonwoo picks up the striker from the bench and holds it over the Bunsen burner at an angle, squeezing the handle to create the sparks that turn into a flame underneath the ring stand where the crucible will sit.

 

His partner rubs the back of his neck. Wonwoo eyes him expectantly. “Well, no,” he admits. Of course he didn’t. Not only does this guy discredit his interests, but he adds insult to injury by not showing any motivation to actually help out. “I figured I would just wing it when I got here. Technically,” he adds on, toothy grin flashing itself for the umpteenth time, “it worked out.”

 

“Technically, I have every right to not share my data with you.” Wonwoo doesn’t look at him, instead focusing his eyes on the flame to make sure it’s the right height.

 

“I think you mean our data.”

 

“I said what I said.”

 

Soonyoung grumbles under his breath. “You’re not even giving me a chance to help.” At this, Wonwoo scoots to the side and gestures to the crucible. “Here,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound too frustrated. He waits for Soonyoung to grab the tongs. “Put the crucible on the stand above the flame and don’t move the lid at all. It needs to heat up before we can move the lid to let oxygen in.”

 

Wonwoo watches closely as Soonyoung picks up the container holding the magnesium coil and slowly, almost a bit too carefully, places it within the holder above the flame. He smiles to himself, and Wonwoo finds that he’s letting go of the air in his lungs with a sigh of relief. “Okay,” he says, “now we wait for a minute or so.”

 

The other groups seem to be going at the same pace as they are; Wonwoo glances around the lab and doesn’t see any bright flashes of light so far, which means no one has looked at the reaction yet. Oxidizing magnesium is dangerous because it’s something you can’t stare at to observe. He makes a mental note to warn Soonyoung not to look at it directly.

 

“Can we move the lid now?” His partner hasn’t taken his eyes off of the crucible above the flame. His fingers tap along the edge of the counter. “It’s been a minute and a half.”

 

“Sure,” Wonwoo says. “Take the tongs and slide the lid off just a little. You want to make sure there’s a big enough gap, but don’t take it off fully.” Soonyoung moves with a purpose, unlike the demeanor he’d held up until they’d started. He does what Wonwoo says and manages to slide the lid off, and the reaction is nearly instantaneous. Bright, white light appears from within the crucible as the oxygen from the air hits the hot magnesium metal within.

 

Soonyoung, of course, is doing exactly the opposite of what one should be doing when observing this reaction: he stares intensely, interest peaked. Wonwoo yanks on his shirt sleeve to get him to look away. “Don’t stare like that, you’ll burn your retinas. Put the lid back on for a sec.”

 

He scrambles to place it back on top, shielding the reaction again. “It’s just a little light, how can it burn?”

 

Wonwoo sighs. “You’d know if you would have read the procedure.”

 

“Okay, Mr. Know-it-all, I’ll read the damn procedure next time. Just tell me why it’s doing what it’s doing so my tiny brain can comprehend.”

 

He speaks fast and with a dry wit, an eye-roll and a smirk accompanying what he says, just to highlight that he knows he’s in the wrong without actually admitting it. Wonwoo nearly bursts out laughing. “Okay, okay, sorry. It’s just, it’s extremely exothermic and the reaction is really bright. It’s UV light, so it’ll damage your eyes if you look for too long.”

 

Soonyoung nods. “Ah.”

 

The satisfaction of teaching him something makes Wonwoo’s headspace a little more clear. Perhaps Soonyoung thinks chemistry is boring because he doesn’t understand it. Then again, Wonwoo could say the same for himself and math, as he never really latched onto the concepts behind a lot of it. That’s one place he always struggles in, especially when it comes to science, as a lot of chemistry involves manipulating calculations in ways Wonwoo just doesn’t grasp right away. He’s more of a do-it-and-be-satisfied type of person, one who finds observation to be enough. The calculations to find other things related to the experiments being done are all an afterthought.

 

Wonwoo hears the professor telling groups to wrap up their experiments so they can move on to post-lab discussions. He nudges Soonyoung to let him know; his lab partner slowly turns the gas valve down, letting the flame in the Bunsen burner die down so they can record their product mass and clean up.

 

“Can I trust you to use the tongs to lift the crucible back onto the counter so we can weigh it?” Wonwoo sizes Soonyoung up, and to make sure the other boy knows he isn’t being serious, he lets a small smile creep onto his face, hopefully not seeming like he's trying too hard to match the level of carelessness his partner has.

 

“What kind of question is that?” Soonyoung scoffs, grabbing the tongs without waiting for an answer.

 

Wonwoo shrugs. “I just met you, and it’s a genuine concern of mine that I’m able to have faith you won’t break something.”

 

“Watch and learn, dude. Watch and learn.” Soonyoung does succeed in lifting the crucible safely, setting it on the counter to cool. All sources of danger are now out of the way, Wonwoo thinks, but his partner manages to somehow hurt himself nonetheless. He grazes the side of his hand on the still-hot Bunsen burner. It’s minor, but it does look a little painful. Wonwoo, being the observant person he is, flips the faucet on just as Soonyoung mutters a few swears under his breath. 

 

“You were saying?” Wonwoo finds it easy to tease this guy. He’s like a walking contradiction; the cool haircut and the slightly-too-tight jeans he wears are completely thrown out of perspective when he giggles like a hyena or when he handles the lab equipment clumsily. Sure, he may look composed, but even Wonwoo is more smooth than he is when it comes to the current setting.

 

“I just fried my hand and you find it appropriate to make snarky comments?” Soonyoung frowns, shooting some sort of look over his shoulder that suggests Wonwoo shouldn’t have said anything. It might work; he feels a little guilty.

 

“I was just… sorry,” he answers. “Does it hurt?”

 

Soonyoung doesn’t meet his eyes while he places the warm crucible atop the electronic scale sitting on the bench. Wonwoo scribbles the mass number down in his notebook and underlines it neatly, marking its location. “Of course not,” he mutters, turning the water off and shaking his hand vigorously to dry it, “I’m perfectly fine.” He wiggles his fingers in front of Wonwoo’s face. “See?”

 

“Yeah,” Wonwoo supposes, looking at the slight redness around his knuckles. He doesn’t feel so bad for the next comment he’s about to make, considering Soonyoung’s smile. “It was probably chemistry getting back at you for calling it boring.”

 

“Hey, I called math boring, too!”

 

“Well, when calculus somehow finds a way to burn your other hand, you’ll have to let me know, just so I can make sure to never shit-talk a subject ever again.”

 

Post-lab discussion takes about fifteen minutes, and the entire time, Soonyoung fidgets on the stool beside him. Wonwoo notices that he does a lot of pen twirling. It’s distracting, yes, but it’s probably just his way of keeping himself awake. Personally, he’s never had that problem, but Soonyoung must not like the in-class part of learning so much.

 

Their professor ends the period and Soonyoung looks over at Wonwoo expectantly.

 

“So, the lab report…”

 

Wonwoo takes his phone out from his backpack side pocket and opens it up to a new contact page. “Here,” he passes it to his partner, “we’ll have to meet up within the next few days, since the syllabus says reports are due the next lab period.” That’s a huge perk to college; this lab meets only once a week, so luckily for Soonyoung, reading procedures only has to happen before Tuesday mornings. “Just put your number in and I’ll text you sometime, okay?”

 

Soonyoung nods and types up a contact name for himself. Wonwoo wrinkles his nose when his phone meets his hands again.

 

“Really?”

 

“What?” The smile on this guy’s face is sickly.

 

“The emojis.” There’s Soonyoung’s name, and then there’s a barfing emoji, a brain emoji, and a microscope emoji. “Why did you—”

 

“—pick those ones?” Soonyoung finishes the question as they both pack up their bags. “The puking one symbolizes my hatred of this subject. The brain, on the other hand,” he meets Wonwoo’s eyes and runs a mocking hand through his bangs, “that represents how I’ll be the brains behind our lab reports.”

 

Wonwoo scoffs. He puts his backpack on and heads out of the lab, Soonyoung trailing him. He holds the door open and then starts walking down the hall, eager to head back to his room, as he still has a few things to unpack from move-in day and his next class isn’t until later in the afternoon. “Please explain to me how that’ll work, exactly?” He doesn’t doubt it’s true; Soonyoung said himself he’s a math major, and Wonwoo isn’t the best at math, so, that means math-heavy reports would surely be his partner’s forte.

 

“You don’t seem like the type to like calculations very much,” Soonyoung replies confidently enough to make Wonwoo gesture in agreeance. He hits the nail right on its head.

 

“Fair, but the last emoji is completely irrelevant, considering none of our experiments this semester involve microscopes.”

 

They exit the science building together and Wonwoo notices that Soonyoung is heading a different way, so he slows himself down and waits for an over-the-shoulder explanation. Soonyoung turns on his heels and walks backward. “It was the only science-y one, dude. I worked with what I had.”

 

He salutes him goodbye, a very exaggerated gesture that Wonwoo laughs at. “See you,” he calls.

 

Wonwoo nods to himself and then realizes he’s been standing still. Was he laughing because it was actually funny, or because Soonyoung just strikes him as so ridiculous, every one of his mannerisms is laughable? Wonwoo considers the question for about ten minutes while he walks back to his dorm building, and then shrugs it off. He can’t tell if they’ll get along famously or end up annoying each other, and quite frankly, Wonwoo doesn’t want to waste time thinking about it, because chem lab is just chem lab and partners don’t necessarily have to end up being friends, anyway.

 

His partner—as odd and inexplicably smiley as he seems—is nice, at the very least, and not once did Wonwoo feel like he had to pull out his fake manners and push through the period while cursing him internally. That’s a plus.

 

Two can play at that game, so he’ll work with what he’s got.

 

 

* * *

 

 ** _HCl(aq)+KOH(aq)_** **_→ H_** ** _2_** ** _O(l)+ KCl(aq)_**

_An acid-base reaction involving hydrochloric acid and potassium hydroxide. Because the reactants are a strong acid (HCl) and a strong base (KOH), the resulting products will have a pH that is close to 7, as the acid-base strengths cancel each other out to form a neutral product._

 

“Of all places, you had to choose the library?”

 

It’s pouring outside, dark, brooding clouds making it seem a lot later than it is. As Wonwoo and Soonyoung make it inside the first doors of the library building, the sky opens up and the rain gets louder and more intense. Just in time, they’re both thinking, right as Soonyoung frowns in Wonwoo’s direction.

 

“Of course,” he throws back, “where else would we work?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Soonyoung’s voice drops to a whisper when they go through the next set of doors to get inside. The library isn’t the biggest, but it has five floors that are visible from the entry if one were to crane their neck. Wonwoo feels at peace just hearing how quiet it is in here apart from pages turning and the occasional printer running. “We should go somewhere we can actually talk out loud.”

 

“Follow me.”

 

Wonwoo takes them up two flights of stairs to the third floor and then ventures down a row, bookshelves so compactly placed that it feels like a maze if he looks around too fast. He turns and makes sure Soonyoung is behind him; his partner’s eyes scan each row they pass. There are study rooms in the back corner of this floor. Being the curious person he is, Wonwoo had discovered them late at night the other day on his quest to find the perfect place to study, and he would certainly consider this a success. It’s Thursday afternoon, so hopefully all the study spaces will be open as people tend to be in classes around this time of day. Thankfully, Wonwoo’s hypothesis is correct; there are plenty available.

 

He goes into the first unlocked room, lets Soonyoung walk in, and he closes the door with a triumphant smile. “I do tend to think things through,” he comments. Soonyoung throws his stuff down and drops himself into one of the wooden chairs at the small table against the wall. “I knew we’d have some discussion to do, so now we won’t get yelled at for being too loud.”

 

His partner blinks, nodding his head casually while he looks around the room. On one wall, there’s a chalkboard with fresh pieces of chalk ready to use. By the door, there’s a thermostat and some cheesy, motivational poster encouraging group study. “This is nice,” Soonyoung says.

 

“Isn’t it?”

 

He hums. “Now, when I’m cussing out the entire subject of chemistry, at least I won’t get kicked out of the building for being obnoxious.”

 

“Well, the walls aren’t soundproof,” Wonwoo smiles. “Try to keep the rage to a minimum. Besides,” he goes on, taking his notebook, his laptop, a calculator, and some pens out of his bag, “the lab reports may be a little challenging, but all the answers are somewhere in here already.” He gestures to his notebook, poking a finger on the cover.

 

“That was lame,” Soonyoung holds a straight face with his remark.

 

Wonwoo, already questioning whether the storm outside is affecting his sanity, tilts his head to the side and thinks of a comeback, but comes up empty. His partner must notice this. He smirks, folds his hands on the tabletop, and leans forward. “Not as lame as this report we’re about to do, though, wouldn’t you agree?” He saves himself with that, fake laugh about as fake as the sentence itself, Wonwoo thinks, as he’s rubbing the back of his neck out of the awkwardness of it all.

 

“I can’t say I would,” he shrugs. Wonwoo swallows his pride and thinks of two possible scenarios as a result of this very stuffy, very compromising start to their partnership. The first is that Wonwoo ends up smacking Soonyoung or being smacked by Soonyoung, and neither option is pleasant, but either one of them is plausible at the rate things seem to be going. The second is that Wonwoo somehow manages to dodge Soonyoung’s smartass comments and have a quicker wit than he does in order to restore some sort of power balance. That option is the lesser of two evils, but more difficult, more taxing, perhaps on them both.

 

Wonwoo decides on the latter when he stops spacing out and realizes Soonyoung has been waving a hand in front of his face. “Earth to Wonwoo. Has anyone ever told you that you look like Beaker from The Muppets?”

 

His eyes narrow. Soonyoung is laughing, so it must mean he’s saying it to get a rise out of him. Once again, two can play at that game. “Has anyone ever told you you look like—”

 

“—a prince?” He interrupts yet again. Wonwoo shakes his head. “The cutest guy on campus? The most interesting freshman at this school?” He lists off a few more compliments to himself.

 

“A hamster, actually,” Wonwoo deadpans, grinning at the way Soonyoung’s mouth forms an O shape and how his eyes widen, almost confused as to how to answer. Wonwoo doesn’t wait for an answer, because it honestly hadn’t even been that good of a comeback. However true it is—and to Wonwoo, it is slightly, as Soonyoung’s cheeks are a little puffier than average—would be for him to decide.

 

“Okay,” Soonyoung says. Wonwoo pulls up the report guidelines online and stares at the screen of his laptop, quickly scanning each question and calculation they’ll have to do. For their first experiment, it’s a little long-winded, but they should finish within two hours or so. “No more insults, alright? I’ll stop if you stop.”

 

“Why stop?” He comments without looking away from the screen. Wonwoo should really remember to put his contacts in; the way he’s squinting at how small the text is lets him know he might have a headache soon. “I was having fun with it.”

 

“Calling me a hamster isn’t cool,” he whines. “Hamsters are cute, but you never want to look like one.”

 

“Why not? Hamsters are interesting… probably the best pet to have, if I’m judging based on personal preference.”

 

His partner looks horrified. “You’d rather have a rodent than, like, a dog?” When Wonwoo nods at this, Soonyoung throws his arms up in frustration. “God, how could you say that to me?” His dramatics rival anything Wonwoo has ever seen before, words drawn out and pitch rising.

 

Soonyoung is very easily excited, as is obvious. Wonwoo wonders how good of a grade they’ll get on this report and the future ones; citing ‘irreconcilable differences’ wouldn’t seem like a valid excuse to change partners. However, they haven’t killed each other yet and it’s been nearly ten minutes in this tiny room with barely any space to move around. It’s not that they’re fighting or anything, in fact, Wonwoo isn’t sure why he thinks this. Soonyoung isn’t a threat, he’s just strange. Boisterous. Very hard to read and even harder to take seriously, so far.

 

“Can we just,” he takes a deep breath in, meditates on it, and exhales, “get started on this report?”

 

His partner looks suspicious. Wonwoo supposes it’s him being dramatic again. “Fine,” he huffs, “but you’re really weird.”

 

“Right back at you,” and at this, Wonwoo meets his eyes and then looks back to his screen. They both smile, and Wonwoo keeps thinking he’s crossing lines, as he’s never grown so comfortable insulting someone so quickly, not even with his best friends from back home. It all feels too easy. He guesses that it’s something he’s never experienced before, because one minute, Soonyoung seems to criticize everything he says, but the next, he’s laughing at his jokes and rolling with whatever weak punches Wonwoo sends his way. It’s new.

 

Somehow, they’re able to work through the first section cohesively and adhesively at the same time. Wonwoo makes suggestions as Soonyoung proposes answers that are totally different from his own thoughts but still manage to make sense. How they make it past the first part, where their observations are explained, is beyond Wonwoo, who stares at the second part apprehensively. This is where the whole brains-of-the-operation thing must come into play. Soonyoung grins wildly.

 

“Calculations are the second part?” he asks.

 

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says. “I hope this stuff makes sense to you, because honestly,” Soonyoung watches him carefully, “I don’t really get the math behind it.”

 

His partner lights up, giggling and throwing his back as he rocks in his chair. “I knew it!” Wonwoo is perplexed as to what exactly he knew. “You finally have a flaw.” Okay then, that explains that.

 

“Uh?” Voicing his confusion calms Soonyoung down. He must realize he said something he didn’t mean, because his smile diminishes into something shy and he blinks. Wonwoo pretends he doesn’t notice the redness of his ears. It is funny, though, but he’s more interested in why Soonyoung was so ready to point out something wrong.

 

“A flaw,” he repeats, a little quieter. He’s shaking his head, thinking about it. “Nothing, it’s just, you seemed a little too smart, you know?” Wonwoo raises an eyebrow and Soonyoung backtracks. “Okay, maybe not that. I don’t know! You just, you were… a little intimidating, okay?”

 

“Intimidating? You thought I was intimidating?”

 

“Yeah, maybe!” Soonyoung is flustered and Wonwoo feels bad for wanting to laugh. He keeps running his hands through his hair, tripping over his words. Intimidating? The only person he intimidates is himself, really, or his younger brother on occasion, but that’s only when he gets into his snacks or his video games when it isn’t his turn. How Soonyoung finds him intimidating is a mystery to him.

 

“I’m, like, the most un-intimidating person on Earth,” he stresses, laughing earnestly. “I have a molecular modeling kit, for crying out loud. There are probably butterflies scarier than me.” The truth doesn’t even hurt him to say, because Wonwoo is fine admitting it.

 

“You did all the work in the lab, though,” Soonyoung points out, “and I did next to nothing. I felt super dumb.”

 

“I’m sure you aren’t dumb. Lacking a little common sense, maybe, but—”

 

“Plus,” he stresses, “you’re way taller than me. You talk like you actually understand things, and your voice is super deep.” Wonwoo wonders how having a deep voice contributes anything to the matter at hand, but he’ll remember him saying that. “You actually look your age, too. Therefore,” Soonyoung takes a deep breath and points a finger across the table, “that makes you intimidating.” He shrugs as if he’s just unlocked the secrets to the universe. Perhaps he’s actually a genius.

 

Wonwoo raises a hand and pushes Soonyoung’s outstretched arm away, hoping it isn’t awkward that his hands feel a little cold. It’s a stress thing. “Are you saying you don’t look your age?”

 

His partner rolls his eyes. “Dude, I look like I stopped growing past freshman year of high school.” Soonyoung pinches his own cheeks. “Baby fat,” he claims. “And, I’m only like, five-ten on a good day. You’re—what, six-three? Six-four?”

 

“Six-nothing. I’m literally only three inches taller than you, at the most.”

 

“Well, you must wear some thick shoes, because standing next to you makes me feel like your son or something.”

 

Wonwoo gives him a look. “That’s weird, don’t say that.”

 

“When’s your birthday, anyway?” Soonyoung changes the subject, thankfully.

 

“July 17th. When’s yours?”

 

This makes Soonyoung sigh, eyes rolling up to the ceiling dejectedly. “Are you kidding me? I’m an entire month older than you and I’m still nowhere near as tall. Who’s dick do I have to suck to hit a growth spurt?”

 

“Woah, there,” Wonwoo interrupts, “it’s all genetics. No dick-sucking necessary.” Soonyoung smirks at his own comments. “Trust me, it’s a burden sometimes. The showerheads in the dorm are just a little too short for me. Sometimes,” he adds, “I even smack my forehead on door frames. You aren’t even that short. One of my best friends from high school is way shorter than you.”

 

“You don’t have to lie to flatter me, douchebag.”

 

Wonwoo pulls out his phone quickly, unlocking it while he shakes his head, “I’m not lying!” He opens up Instagram and taps on his own profile, where the most recent post is from his high school graduation a couple of months ago. Him and two friends are in their caps and gowns, brand new diplomas in their hands. He shows the picture to Soonyoung from across the table, pointing with his free hand at the boy to Wonwoo’s left.

 

“See?” Soonyoung leans closer to the screen and then starts laughing. “That’s Jihoon, and if he heard you calling yourself short, you’d probably have a foot stuck up your ass.”

 

“He’s bite-sized,” Soonyoung breathes, partly in disbelief and partly to humor himself. Wonwoo nods. “He’s gotta be at least two inches shorter than me.”

 

“Five, actually. He’s only five-five. Every night before he goes to sleep, he hopes that the height fairy comes while he’s knocked out. He even puts a ruler under his pillow.”

 

They both laugh at this, and Wonwoo takes his phone back and locks it. They really should focus on their report. He doesn’t even remember how they got sidetracked in the first place. Now that his mind is on Jihoon, Wonwoo feels a little homesick. Him and his friends were like dandelion seeds; they all chose colleges in different places, and Wonwoo wonders if he’s the first of them to bring old friends up to new ones. Does Soonyoung classify as a friend? Wonwoo isn’t really sure yet, but the possibility to grow is there, as long as they find a way to actually work together.

 

His partner finally gets quieter apart from some humming, which Wonwoo can deal with. It’s certainly more pleasant to listen to than pen clicks. When Soonyoung opens up his own computer to look over the report guidelines, though, his face is set in stone. Wonwoo watches him as he doesn’t even blink for a solid thirty seconds. He feels like he’s become invisible.

 

Finally, Soonyoung nods to himself and scoots his chair out from the table. Approaching the chalkboard, he picks up a piece of chalk and tosses it up in the air for himself to catch. “Okay,” he states, looking over his shoulder, “you’re going to read off the numbers I ask for, starting with the mass of the cruci—the crucifix? Was that its name?”

 

Wonwoo stifles a laugh. “The crucible,” he corrects him. Soonyoung nods in recognition of the word.

 

“Right. We didn’t kill Jesus in chem lab.”

 

“That’s just wrong—”

 

“Anyway,” Soonyoung goes on. He rocks back and forth from the balls of his feet to his heels. “I need the end mass of the crucible thing.”

 

Wonwoo recites the numbers when Soonyoung asks for them. He’s scribbling all over the board in messy handwriting, numbers and units mixing together into one, unreadable blob. It’s kind of amazing how he works; without a calculator, Wonwoo would feel naked and useless, but Soonyoung does the algebra seamlessly without its help. He doesn’t even care to talk through what it is he’s writing, which Wonwoo would find helpful, but he doesn’t want to overstep his boundaries and ask him to decipher the mathematical hieroglyphs he’s conjuring up.

 

“So, this is our actual yield of product,” Soonyoung steps aside to gesture to a boxed off number that Wonwoo has to squint to read. He copies it down on a scrap piece of paper. “And if I did my math right—” he stops himself with a sarcastic laugh, indicating that, duh, his math is one-hundred percent viable. “This,” he points to another boxed off number, “is the theoretical yield. Make sense?”

 

Feeling a little lost, Wonwoo figures that the values are pretty accurate according to common sense, so he shrugs. “You’re the mathematician here,” he says, “so if your numbers are right, we should get a perfect grade on this report. If not, I’m blaming you.”

 

“I know it doesn’t seem like it,” Soonyoung comes to plop back down in his chair, “but if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s that.” One finger points toward the chicken scratch on the board. His hands are covered with white dust from the chalk, and Wonwoo almost warns him before he runs them through his bangs, but bites his tongue. He’s allowed this tiny victory, right?

 

“I’ll take your word for it.”

 

“Hey,” he says, “I’m just glad you didn’t ask me to explain it.”

 

“Why is that?” Wonwoo jots down the basic equations that Soonyoung had used. He strains his eyes trying to read them, but he gets the gist.

 

His partner copies him, writing hurriedly in his own notebook. “I’m not good at the whole explaining part. I’m not…” he trails off. Wonwoo waits for him to keep talking. “I’m not like you and chemistry, if that makes sense.”

 

It does, he thinks. Some people are better at mental math than others, and trying to explain how it’s done could be more confusing than the math itself. Wonwoo can understand that. For every other subject, that’s how it is for him. His parents always tell him he’d make an amazing teacher. Wonwoo doesn’t really find any issue in talking things out, but Soonyoung is different. It doesn’t matter to him one way or the other, as long as they get answers.

 

“You make total sense,” he replies honestly, shutting his laptop. “Now I get why you were so confident in putting that ugly brain emoji in your contact name.”

 

Soonyoung eyes him as he puts his things into his backpack. “Okay, you’re definitely not as intimidating now that I know you think I’m a genius.”

 

“First of all, I didn’t say you were a genius.” Wonwoo slides his own things into his bag and zips it slowly. “Second, stop calling me intimidating. It makes me feel self-conscious.”

 

His partner laughs. Neither of them gets up from the table yet, but they’re both packed up. The whole report did take about two hours, Wonwoo thinks, but it felt more like twenty minutes. Time flies when you’re trying to make lab reports fun. “Did it stop raining?” His thoughts make their way out of his mouth by accident. The drumming sound on the roof is gone now, and he wonders if it’ll be safe to go outside.

 

“Dunno,” Soonyoung is the first to stand, and as he pushes his chair in, he flings one strap of his bag over a shoulder and heads for the door. “Let’s see.”

 

Wonwoo follows him down the stairs and into the lobby. From inside, the large windows let sunlight in, making it clear that the rain has stopped and they won’t get drenched upon leaving. They head out the first set of doors and then the next, and Wonwoo finds it weird that Soonyoung doesn’t say something first.

 

“Uh, I guess the only thing you have to do now is print whatever you have typed,” Wonwoo says. Soonyoung shuffles his feet on the sidewalk. “We both have to turn in a copy, so…”

 

“Got it. I’ll see you on Tuesday,” he answers, and he turns to walk in the other direction. Wonwoo goes as well but feels compelled to turn back around. He finds that Soonyoung is facing him, too, and they both speak at the same moment.

 

“By the way—”

 

“By the way—”

 

Wonwoo chuckles and decides to keep talking. “Sorry, I just wanted to thank you for doing all the math.”

 

Soonyoung salutes him in the same manner he did two days ago. “No problemo. I was just gonna tell you that, you know, even if you are intimidating, you’re still, uh, you’re still pretty chill, you know?”

 

The way he stutters makes Wonwoo’s smile wide enough to crinkle his nose. “Well, thanks,” he calls back, and they end it there, turning back around to head their respective ways. Wonwoo beats himself up over how dorky of a response he’d given. What is one supposed to say when someone calls you chill? What does chill even imply? Personally, he thinks he’s the opposite of chill, but apparently, he’s gotten really good at staying calm around new people.

 

Soonyoung, as different as he is, isn’t all that bad. He’s got his smartass dial turned up way more than Wonwoo’s, but in terms of intellectual ability, Wonwoo now knows that there’s some value in the head that had initially struck him as vacant.

 

He feels bad for judging so quickly. The guilt is light, but Wonwoo can’t help but notice it and acknowledge that the reason he’d been so unsure of his partner situation is that Soonyoung is someone Wonwoo might actually like to be: witty, naturally gifted, easygoing. Wonwoo is none of those things, even if he is “chill.” His jokes aren’t nearly as good. He’s always had to study extremely hard to understand something. He doesn’t find it very easy to relax, even if it looks that way on the outside, because he has thoughts like these in the first place. If anything, Wonwoo is just a plain Jane. He’s never felt all that interesting. Comparing himself to Soonyoung definitely isn’t right, but he can’t help it.

 

Soonyoung, on the other hand, is interesting. Soonyoung carries conversations well. His appearance—from his undercut to his gum-filled smile—is far more striking than any mixture of Wonwoo’s features. In general, he’s pleasant to look at, pleasant to talk to, and pleasant to work with, as painful as it is to admit.

 

Maybe getting off on the wrong foot was a good way to develop whatever weird friendship they’re starting to have. He can put childish reasons behind him, right? Even the most different of people can learn how to balance each other out.

 

So, Wonwoo makes a conscious decision to be a little nicer. Befriending his partner has its benefits: better collaborative efforts, a personal connection to someone his age that isn’t his roommate, and potentially, the chance to be tutored in calculus, which Wonwoo doesn’t like so far, since it’s on his schedule every day except Wednesdays.

 

Sure, he’ll be nicer. He can do that. The thought of Soonyoung walking around campus with chalk dust in his hair, though, brings a smile to his face.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **AgNO** **3** **(** **_aq_ ** **)+Cu(** **_s_ ** **)→Cu(NO** **3** **)** **2** **(** **_aq_ ** **)+2Ag(** **_s_ ** **)**

_A single-replacement reaction between copper metal and aqueous silver nitrate that produces strands of elemental silver crystals and bright blue copper nitrate. Single-replacement reactions such as this illustrate how one pair of the formula’s components switch places to form new products (simplified as AB+C→A+BC)._

 

The first week of classes ends and Wonwoo finds himself in his room on Friday when the transition from afternoon to evening is starting, lounging on his bed, listening to people in the halls run around and talk about the night’s plans.

 

Because it’s not quite fall yet, the windows are open in a futile attempt to let air circulate and relieve some of the dorm’s humidity. The building itself is ancient enough to not have air conditioning on any floor besides the first one. Wonwoo doesn’t really mind it, as he has a small fan on the bedside table blowing into his face, but it is uncomfortable for his roommate, apparently. He had gone down the hall to the bathroom in order to take a cold shower, and he comes back in after twenty minutes with a towel around his waist and his hair dripping onto the tile floor.

 

“You didn’t even make an attempt to dry your head,” Wonwoo observes, looking up from his phone. He’s playing a game of Sudoku and he’s almost beaten his time record for a Hard level.

 

Jun is the type of person—Wonwoo is coming to find out—who lives in his own little world. His roommate is good company, respects boundaries, and amuses him, but the way he carries himself is something Wonwoo can’t really understand. He doesn’t walk, he struts. He has no shame. As funny as it is, Wonwoo feels like he should be protective, as Jun could literally go outside naked without a care in the world.

 

“It looks better when it dries if I don’t mess with it right after I shower,” Jun says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You going out tonight?” He doesn’t even pause before whipping his towel off his lower half, exposing parts of him Wonwoo feels bashful just thinking about. Again: no shame at all. It’s enlightening to see.

 

“No,” he answers. He fills in another space on his Sudoku grid. “I don’t really have anywhere to go.”

 

“One of the guys in my psych class has a brother who’s a senior,” he slips on some underwear and then a pair of basketball shorts, “and he told me about a house party he’s having tonight near campus, so I figured I’d go with him. You’re welcome to join me.” Jun forgoes a shirt and comes to the edge of Wonwoo’s bed. The Jun-shaped shadow prompts Wonwoo to take his eyes away from his game.

 

He wouldn’t say he isn’t a party person, but he wouldn’t say he is, either. Wonwoo doesn’t know how he feels about them, considering he’s never had the experience of going before. “I think I’ll just stay in,” he says, and Jun blinks down at him.

 

“You don’t have to drink, you know. You could just hang out with me,” he pouts, and Wonwoo sits up to make him back off.

 

“Tempting,” he jokes. “Are you planning on drinking?”

 

Like any college freshman presented with the opportunity to be rebellious without worrying about their parents finding out, the smile that spreads across Jun’s face is both unsure and very eager. “Maybe,” he draws out, batting his eyes. Wonwoo clicks his tongue.

 

“Then I’ll stay here,” he concludes, laying back down and adjusting his head on his pillows to get comfortable. “I’ll make sure the door stays unlocked and that you make it into bed when you get back. I wouldn’t want you to pass out on the floor or something.”

 

“Nice answer,” Jun snorts. “You win the Best Roomie award.”

 

“I’d like to thank the Academy…” Wonwoo trails off, carrying the joke on, and Jun laughs at him before flopping down on his own bed in the other corner of the room. Their double is a reasonable size, and Wonwoo is grateful that they were able to fit all their things plus themselves into it without it feeling too cramped. He looks over and sees Jun’s wet hair soaking his pillowcases.

 

“Have you ever thought about putting a towel around your head?” he asks, genuinely curious, apparently still hung up on the subject of the mop on Jun’s head.

 

“Why does my dripping concern you so much?” He smiles over at Wonwoo, and Wonwoo shrugs from where he lays.

 

“It doesn’t,” he says, “but your pillows are going to be wet.”

 

Jun starts singing that song from The Little Mermaid in a sweet voice, pitch going everywhere, lyrics saying something about it being better where it’s wetter, and Wonwoo laughs at his imitations. “Suit yourself,” he adds, shifting his attention away from his roommate’s ridiculous expressions and back to the puzzle on his phone. “Sleep with damp pillows if you want.”

 

“Sweet, sweet Wonwoo,” Jun shakes his head with a smile, “I think I’ll be okay.”

 

Jun has a habit of talking even when Wonwoo doesn’t respond. They sit there for a little over an hour, noise coming from the hallway, outside of the open window, and from Jun, who has conversations with himself about random things every few minutes or so. Wonwoo says nothing, choosing to listen to him entertain himself without opening up discussion. He’s intent on focusing on his Sudoku. His roommate is about as scatterbrained as they come, but Wonwoo thinks it’s endearing. The way he’s so enthusiastic about the arbitrary things he talks about is confusing, yes, but also very delightful to hear.

 

Wonwoo makes it through seven different Sudoku puzzles before Jun gets up and puts actual clothes on: an oversized t-shirt, ripped jeans and a pair of beaten-up Converse. He looks like he just walked out of a Hot Topic employee meeting. He pulls it off, though, swooping his hair up off his forehead with a small dab of product.

 

Wonwoo smirks when he sees him posing in the mirror that hangs on one of the closet doors. “Having fun, Adonis?”

 

Jun—his reflection, rather—winks at him, and Wonwoo feels his cheeks go warm. “You bet,” is his answer, but the goofy grin on his face tells Wonwoo that he doesn’t try too hard to look as attractive as he is. Deep down, Jun is definitely as dorky as him. That thought makes Wonwoo feel a little better about himself.

 

“I’m heading out now,” he says. Wonwoo checks the time. It’s barely nine o’clock. Outside, the sun is just below the horizon and the sky is all sorts of shades of the sunset. “Oh, also,” he’s halfway out the door but he peeks his face back in from outside in the hall. “Do you think you could throw my pillows in the dryer?”

 

Wonwoo groans, faking the frustration. “Oh, now you admit the wet hair was a problem.”

 

Jun’s face is some sort of a cross between a pout and a kissy face. Wonwoo doesn’t need bribery, though. “Please? I’ll love you forever if you do.”

 

Because Wonwoo is a caring person, he doesn’t gloat. “Just go,” he waves him off, “I’ll take care of your stupid pillows.”

 

His roommate grins, flings the door back open, and bounds over to where Wonwoo is now sitting up on his bed. He throws himself at him in an attempt to hug him (or smother him, from Wonwoo’s perspective) and he babbles out his gratitude directly into his ear. Before he can run out of oxygen, Wonwoo pushes him away while he’s bouncing around. “I mean this in the kindest way,” he laughs, “but please, fuck off.”

 

“You’re the best!” His roommate seems to skip out the door again, shutting it loudly behind him.

 

“Goofball…” Wonwoo muses, flattening down his hair, which Jun had messed up moments before. He gets out of bed and grabs the pillows off his bed, takes his box of dryer sheets out of the closet, slips his flip flops on, and goes downstairs to the laundry room.

 

Because he lives in a single-sex dorm with 200 or so other members of the male student body, Wonwoo expects to walk in and see machines on fire and floods from the washers. Fortunately, his misgivings about the typical guys he sees in the halls are proven to be wrong. A few machines are running, but their occupants probably went back to their rooms, which is exactly what Wonwoo plans on doing. There’s no use sitting around in a place that reeks of dirty socks and lint.

 

He throws Jun’s damp pillows into an open dryer and tosses a dryer sheet in behind them. When he starts the machine, he makes sure to set a timer on his phone to remind him to come back down in an hour.

 

Wonwoo leaves the laundry room and goes back out into the main floor hallway to get the elevator back up to his room on the fourth one. He can hear people leaving to go out through the dorm’s front doors. The old man who sits there at a desk for “security reasons” probably just looks the other way when they start talking about drinking, since most of them are freshman and, therefore, totally underage. Wonwoo imagines the crowds stumbling back in in a few hours and smiles at the thought of the poor guy doing his crosswords obliviously.

 

The elevator reaches the ground floor and opens with a ding. Wonwoo holds his box of dryer sheets with both hands and, upon realizing who it is that comes into view, nearly lets it fall.

 

It’s Soonyoung, except it isn't lab Soonyoung. It’s some sort of weird, alternate-universe Soonyoung that Wonwoo doesn’t recognize at first because his bangs are styled with gel to expose his forehead. His clothes are all black. His eyes peer out at him and they look different, defined with even more black, something that looks like eyeshadow or eyeliner. And—is that an _earring?_

 

Eat your heart out, lab Soonyoung.

 

He’s alone, thank God, because Wonwoo realizes he’s been staring and apparently it’s been long enough that the elevator doors start to close. Soonyoung wasn’t moving either, but he lunges forward and sticks an arm out to make them retract again.

 

Of course, the first words he says when he walks out into the hallway are about the dryer sheets. “Laundry?” He’s pointing a lackadaisical finger at the box.

 

Wonwoo swallows. “Yeah.” With a nod, he adds, “Uh, going out?”

 

“Yeah, could you tell?” Soonyoung smiles, making his eyes crinkle up as if he hasn’t got smudged makeup all over his lids. He strikes a pose and it lightens the mood. Wonwoo senses the awkward air shift when his lab partner bares his gums.

 

“Just a little,” he humors him. “You look like my roommate.”

 

“Why, what’s he look like?”

 

“Like someone that still believes My Chemical Romance could have a reunion sometime soon.”

 

Soonyoung snorts and then laughs so hard he bends over. Wonwoo watches him compose himself and feels some sort of weight in his chest. Is he proud of making him cackle like that? Yeah, he thinks, maybe a bit. He didn’t know he was that funny.

 

“I guess,” he wheezes, wiping away a tear that forms, “I guess all the black was a little overboard.”

 

Wonwoo supposes he’s right, but he does make it work. It works too well, to be honest. The vibe he gives off is almost opposite what Wonwoo is familiar with; the confidence is still there, but it’s different. It’s not in his brains, it’s in his clothes, and frankly, Wonwoo thinks it’s powerful.

 

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” is all he says, though. “The, uh, earring balances you out.”

 

It’s a simple, silver hoop on his right earlobe, small enough to overlook but just the right size for Wonwoo to have noticed right away. Soonyoung’s eyes widen and he brings a hand up to his ear, feeling for it, and he grins. “Like it?”

 

“It’s…” Wonwoo looks for words. Cute? No, too innocent. Interesting? No, too vague. Kind of—actually, scratch that— _very_ attractive? “It’s nice,” he concludes, panic settling down. Compose yourself, he thinks. Attractive people are no big deal. He can’t move his eyes away, though.

 

Soonyoung tilts his head and giggles. “Yeah. It is pretty nice. Makes me feel like a pirate.”

 

“A pirate?”

 

“Sure!” He looks excited. Wonwoo crinkles his nose in a smile. “You’ve never seen a pirate wearing an earring before?”

 

“I’ve never seen a pirate in general,” Wonwoo says.

 

“You’re telling me you’ve never seen Pirates of the Caribbean?”

 

“I have,” he says, thinking, “but I never really noticed their earrings.”

 

Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “You’ve got a lot of watching to do, then. Of all people, I never expected someone like you to be this uncultured.”

 

Wonwoo fights back a smart aleck response as Soonyoung fixes a piece of hair from his bangs that had fallen out of place. “I should get going,” he says, before any sarcastic remark can be made,  and Wonwoo acknowledges this with a nod. “My calc friends will probably kill me if I miss the Uber with them. House parties, you know…too far to walk to…” Wonwoo doesn’t know, but he keeps nodding anyway.

 

“Sure,” he says, pushing the elevator button again so the doors reopen. When he walks in, he hits the one for his floor. “Try not to walk any planks. I sort of need you around for the whole semester.”

 

Soonyoung giggles again and the weight returns to Wonwoo’s chest. The doors slide shut and he’s staring into space, thinking about how unfunny of a goodbye he had given, but snaps out of it by assuring himself that if Soonyoung laughed, it was probably a good sign regardless. A good sign for what, Wonwoo doesn’t know, but he knows laughter is better than awkward silence. His life is full enough of that as it is.

 

God, what right does Soonyoung have to look that good? Wonwoo tries to shake off the thought of him.

 

An hour goes by while Wonwoo watches a few episodes of Parks and Recreation until his timer sounds and he goes to bring the pillows back up. Making sure they’re adequately fluffed, he puts them back on Jun’s bed and returns to his own, where his laptop sits open on the Netflix screen. A few hours and a season and a half later, his roommate opens the door to the room slowly, hushes someone out in the hallway, and then tiptoes in, only seeing that Wonwoo is still awake upon entering further.

 

“Hey,” he greets him. Jun doesn’t look totally drunk, but his lopsided smile and slowed reaction time lets Wonwoo know that he certainly isn’t sober.

 

“You fixed my pillows,” Jun notices when he looks over to his bed. The smile on his face grows wider. “I’m going to be so comfy tonight.” Wonwoo chuckles at the way he speaks. It’s so innocent, so much louder than his normal voice, not as withheld.

 

“Who’s out there?” Wonwoo asks him, noticing that whoever Jun had shushed is leaning up against their door frame, just a silhouette Wonwoo can’t identify.

 

Jun looks back. “That’s a guy,” he says plainly, eyes wide.

 

“That certainly answers my question.”

 

“He is a guy,” Jun says again, “and he lives here. I found him at this party. He was drinking all the juice boxes. Fruit punch Hi-C.”

 

Wonwoo raises an eyebrow. Whoever Jun brought back with him is apparently not drunk, so he rules out a hook-up. Jun doesn’t seem like the type to do that unannounced, for one. Maybe he just saw that his roommate needed a little help getting back, and Wonwoo can see why. He totters around in the middle of the room like he’s trying to go somewhere, but ends up laughing to himself for no reason.

 

Getting out of bed, Wonwoo grabs his shoulders and leads him to his own, where he pushes him into a sitting position so he doesn’t trip over his own feet. “Does this guy have a name?” he asks, looking over his shoulder to the door. “Hey,” he calls. Whoever it is is playing on his phone, and he puts it away when he hears Wonwoo tell him to come in. He wants to thank him for making sure Jun didn’t end up taking rides from strangers.

 

“I think he has awesome hair,” Jun points out, nodding fervently at his own words.

 

What Wonwoo expects isn’t what he gets. He’s picturing someone who isn’t familiar, but comes face-to-face with the boy he’d run into earlier, awesome hair, earring, and all. The panicked feeling returns, but he swallows it and tries not to sound too flustered.

 

“What a coincidence,” he says. “How nice of you to show up with this buried treasure.” He gestures to Jun, who beams up at him at being called as such.

 

Soonyoung looks around the dim room curiously, and then to Wonwoo, when he gives him a small smile. He looks tired; the way he walks is subdued, as if he’s suddenly aware of how much noise he usually makes. “Still keeping up with the pirate references,” he comments. “I’m impressed.”

 

“Thank you. I tried a little too hard, though. This one,” he looks at Jun, “isn’t exactly a treasure, but you take what you can get, I guess.”

 

Jun laughs as if he doesn’t realize Wonwoo’s words hadn’t been compliments. Soonyoung puts a hand on his shoulder, and his roommate puts his own hand on top of it. “He was the life of the party,” he laughs. “This guy can seriously dance. He almost busted his ass when Mr. Brightside came on.”

 

“You didn’t happen to film it, did you?”

 

“God, I wish I had.”

 

“He said you drank a lot of juice,” Wonwoo says, phrasing it almost like a question. Soonyoung doesn’t look like Jun at all. He stands upright, remaining stoic and fully aware of the conversation. With the way he’s dressed, the way he’d walked out of that elevator so composed earlier, Wonwoo wouldn’t expect him to be the type of person to forego the alcohol for Hi-C.

 

Soonyoung nods. “I did. It wasn’t even cold, which was shitty, but I have no idea who owns the house, so I don’t really have anyone to take that up with.” He rubs the back of his neck with the hand that isn’t on Jun’s shoulder. “How’d the laundry go?”

 

Wonwoo is a little taken aback. He had forgotten about that. He’s even more surprised that Soonyoung remembered. “Fine,” he says, pointing to Jun’s pillows. “Mr. Life of the Party here soaked his pillows with his hair before he left and he begged me to dry them.”

 

“I totally did not beg. If anyone begged, you begged,” Jun interjects, making no sense. He laughs again, takes his hand off of Soonyoung’s, and then falls on his side, bed springs creaking under his weight.

 

“That’s cute,” Soonyoung teases.

 

“It is not,” Wonwoo says back.

 

“It is.”

 

“I was being a nice person.”

 

“Which is cute of you,” Soonyoung argues back, and Wonwoo is a little too flustered to keep on disagreeing. “My roommate doesn’t seem like the type to do something like that for me.”

 

Wonwoo smirks. “Well, I did recently win the Best Roomie award.”

 

Raising an eyebrow, Soonyoung holds his hands up in reverence. “Woah, didn’t realize I was friends with some hot-shot like you. I have the privilege of calling the world’s best roommate my lab partner.”

 

Ah, Wonwoo thinks, so they are friends. Until Soonyoung had said it himself, he was unsure of their standing, unsure of how to refer to him. He still thinks it’s a little odd, considering he knows next to nothing about him. “Right,” he replies. “I guess I really am intimidating, huh?”

 

“Oh, definitely,” Soonyoung assures him, rolling his eyes. “You know, I only said that because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”

 

“I’m sure that’s it.”

 

“There’s a better word than intimidating.” He looks at Wonwoo closely. The makeup around his eyes is still there, smudged and very intriguing. Wonwoo stares back, noticing it, also seeing that his bangs are somehow still in place. “Formidable, maybe?”

 

Wonwoo blinks. “They’re synonyms.”

 

“No, they aren’t.”

 

“Yes, they are.”

 

“Being called formidable sounds a lot nicer than intimidating,” he claims, and Wonwoo just lets him have this one, shaking his head in defeat.

 

“Okay, so I’m formidable. I don’t know what to do with that information.”

 

Soonyoung just shrugs, averting his eyes and looking at Jun instead, who is now curled up in the fetal position on top of his blankets. He’s singing something to himself. “Formidable, intimidating, whatever you want to call it. The first day in lab, you turned around and looked like you wanted to punch me because I was clicking my pen.”

 

Wonwoo smiles. “I thought it was annoying.”

 

“You weren’t seriously paying attention to all that shit about Bunsen burners, were you?” Soonyoung paces around the room. Wonwoo watches him looking at all the posters on the walls, and feels a little sheepish when he smiles up at the one over his bed. It’s the periodic table with illustrations of each element.

 

“I wasn’t,” he says honestly. “But the pen clicks were driving me crazy.”

 

“No wonder,” Soonyoung says, still looking at the poster. He’s investigating each picture for each block, finger tracing in the air where his eyes move. “I tend to have that effect on people.”

 

With a laugh, Wonwoo throws his head back mockingly. “And you said _I_ was the hot-shot.”

 

Jun mumbles something about them being loud, and Wonwoo looks over at him. He’s probably wanting to get to sleep in order to minimize whatever headache he’ll have in the morning. “I guess I should—”

 

“Oh,” Soonyoung breaks his gaze away from the poster, snapping back into his surroundings. It’s funny how he looks so caught off-guard. “Right. I’m still in your room. I’ll leave, I guess, I just… yeah.” He smiles at himself. Wonwoo follows him to the door.

 

“Thanks, again.” Wonwoo looks back to Jun on his bed. Soonyoung just looks around, everywhere but Wonwoo’s eyes, and waves a hand.

 

“Don’t worry about it. If I were one to drink like that, I’d hope someone would do the same for me.”

 

“Yeah, well, it was sweet of you.”

 

“You think so?” For a second, his eyes grow wide and he looks confused, but Wonwoo grins at him, giving him an eye-roll for good measure. “I mean,” he coughs and corrects himself, straightening his posture, “I know. It was sweet of me.”

 

Wonwoo raises an eyebrow. Soonyoung’s ears go red and he hides his face behind his hands for a moment. “Anyway,” he goes on. “I’ll make sure to ask Jun if he remembers you tomorrow. Hopefully he does, but it’d be just as funny if he doesn’t.”

 

“Rude, Wonwoo,” Soonyoung remarks, taking slow steps down the hallway still facing the door that Wonwoo peers out of. He hears his name and smiles inexplicably. “Here’s to hoping he doesn’t puke all over the floor later!”

 

“I can text you if he does,” Wonwoo calls back. “We can both clean it up and count it as extra lab experience.”

 

“Yeah? Go fuck yourself.”

 

“Just a suggestion!”

 

Soonyoung rounds the corner to get to the elevator, short wave coming just before he disappears from sight. Wonwoo shuts the door and feels a bit giddy, tiredness gone as he walks back over to Jun’s bed, where the man of the hour is splayed out with one arm dangling off the side, fingertips nearly hitting the tile floor.

 

The odds of Soonyoung actually answering a text about cleaning up Jun’s potential messes are slim to none, but Wonwoo finds himself hoping his roommate decides to get sick, because he thinks it’d be quite the story to tell later on when he and his partner eventually develop more of a friendship. The fact that he feels happy at knowing they’re actually friends doesn’t feel very characteristic of him. Why wouldn’t they be friends? Wonwoo feels stupid for assuming he and Soonyoung were too different, especially considering they both enjoy the same pastimes of insulting one another and then laughing about it after.

 

Jun drifts off to sleep and tosses and turns until Wonwoo gets back into bed himself. No puking is necessary, though, because he checks his phone before putting it on his bedside table for the night and he has a text from Soonyoung.

 

It’s a five-second-long video. ‘one of my friends saved this from snapchat. thought u might want it :-)’

 

He presses the play button and Jun is on the screen, blue Solo cup in hand, music blaring, and he does some ridiculous thing with his arms and legs that shouldn’t even be considered dancing, but is fitting of the circumstance nonetheless. Wonwoo replays it a couple of times, laughing to himself, before he types out a reply.

 

‘Thx for the blackmail.’

 

He hits send and waits to see if Soonyoung will answer, but he doesn’t after two minutes, so Wonwoo locks his phone and sets it aside. The prospect of texting isn’t all that exciting to him, but for some reason, he flips his phone over a few more times and looks at his lockscreen for a new notification. He decides he’s being stupid. The conversation isn’t one that needs to be furthered, and yet, he checks anyway.

 

Wonwoo stops waiting and wills himself to fall asleep, thinking about if it hurts to get your ears pierced, or if pencil eyeliner is better than liquid.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **CoCl** **2** **(aq)+Na** **2** **SO** **4** **(aq)→CoSO** **4** **(aq)+2NaCl(aq)**

_A molecular equation showing the reactants cobalt(II)chloride and sodium sulfate forming the products cobalt(II)sulfate and sodium chloride. This is not a precipitation reaction, meaning that there is no formation of a solid product as a result of two aqueous reactants. Because of solubility rules, there is no observable change._

 

Colder weather means a lot of things. It shows itself in the shades of leaves changing from green to various oranges and yellows. It crawls on the grass in the mornings in the form of frost that disappears as soon as the sun is up. It also hits Wonwoo like a ton of bricks, because he’s prone to getting sick when the temperature drops, and evidently, the universe hates him a great deal when he wakes up with a pounding headache and a crusty nose.

 

It isn’t the flu, but it is a very bad cold. He manages to get out of bed on time when Tuesday rolls around, the last one for the month of October. Halloween is tomorrow, he thinks passively, leaving his room half-asleep to go take a steaming hot shower in the bathroom down the hall. Wonwoo hates being sick, not only because it just plain sucks, but also because he feels like dead weight, useless in doing things he does every day. While showering, he drops his shampoo bottle three times because his hands ache too much to grasp it. Not even the hot water can help him. He blows his nose hard when he returns to his room, but the steam barely opened up his sinuses.

 

Would Soonyoung hate him if he skipped lab?

 

Neither of them have missed a lab period yet, and Wonwoo definitely doesn’t want to be the first, so he fights through the achiness and gets dressed, dries his hair sloppily, and downs two extra-strength Tylenol pills before heading out, ready to conquer the day. Unfortunately for him, he’s the one feeling conquered the minute he gets to the lab room.

 

Soonyoung is already here. Wonwoo usually feels more alert around his partner, more poised and optimistic, but he can’t even manage the usual hello when he drops himself down onto the stool next to him, backpack flung to the floor at his feet.

 

“You know,” Soonyoung leans over, voice bright, “Halloween is tomorrow.”

 

“I know,” Wonwoo says, cringing a little at how gross his own voice sounds. Phlegm and a sore throat don’t make for good conversation.

 

“If you know, then why did you wear your zombie costume today?”

 

The teasing registers, but Wonwoo can only smile weakly. “I’m definitely not in the mood,” he says. “Do I really look that dead?” His curiosity gets the better of him and he lifts his head off his arms to look at Soonyoung, who looks at him carefully. Wonwoo feels too self-conscious of his appearance right now; he has no clue how his hair looks, as it’s still damp, and he’s sure his nose is bright red from the excessive blowing.

 

“You look like you should have stayed in bed,” his partner answers, tutting. “I would have been perfectly fine without you here. You didn’t have to come in if you were this sick.”

 

“I didn’t want to miss.”

 

“Yeah? Well I don’t want to catch the plague from you. We don’t always get what we want, now do we?” He goes to slap Wonwoo’s shoulder, but stops himself, realizing it’ll probably knock the wind out of him in his current state. Instead, he just taps his hand on his back a few times. Wonwoo finds it comforting.

 

“I won’t…” Wonwoo trails off when he feels a sneeze coming, and he turns to avoid spraying Soonyoung with snot. “I won’t give you the plague,” he finishes, sniffling.

 

His partner just smiles. It’s sympathetic enough, a little unbelievable from Soonyoung. Despite knowing each other for two months now, Wonwoo still finds it difficult to read any sort of emotion from him that isn’t happiness, excitability, or sarcasm.

 

“Just try not to sneeze all over the experiment. It’d suck to have skewed data.”

 

“Whatever.”

 

Thankfully, today’s experiment isn’t something that will require Wonwoo to bend over backwards trying to corral Soonyoung into safety, away from the temptations of messing with open flames or beakers full of corrosive acid. They’re observing a simple reaction between a weak base and an indicator. When mixed, the solution will turn pink in a certain amount of time, and they’re supposed to change the temperatures to see the different effects on the rate of reaction.

 

Soonyoung takes the reins and gets the materials out of the cabinet at their bench. “Three beakers, right?”

 

Wonwoo nods, still sitting. He thinks if he gets up, he might fall right back down. “Yeah. Two hundred milliliter beakers.”

 

His partner grabs the beakers and sets them on the benchtop and Wonwoo figures he’ll do something useful. “Hand me the graduated cylinder—no, not the small one,” Soonyoung puts it back and gives him a bigger one. “Perfect. I’ll measure out our base.”

 

“Don’t spill,” Soonyoung jokes. He goes to get the indicator from the other end of the bench. It’s in a brown bottle with a rubber dropper top, labelled with a long name he tries and fails to pronounce.

 

After measuring out the right amount of base into each beaker, Wonwoo plugs in the hotplate so he can get it heated appropriately for the water bath they’ll be placing one beaker into. Their professor already put containers with ice at the end of each bench, so Wonwoo takes the liberty of starting the cold reaction first.

 

“When I put the indicator in this beaker, you start a stopwatch on your phone, okay?” Soonyoung nods, pulling out his phone and opening up the Clock app. “Ready, set…” Wonwoo drops the indicator in and Soonyoung starts the time as the beaker is placed into the ice bath. It’s colder, so the reaction to turn the base pink will take longer.

 

“You should watch that. I can do the other ones.”

 

“No, it’s okay,” Wonwoo argues, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

 

“Wonwoo, trust me. I can—”

 

“I’m not dying, Soonyoung. It’s an experiment.” He tries to raise his voice to match his partner’s, which is a bad idea, because it cracks like he’s going through puberty and he ends up finding it hilarious.

 

“Don’t laugh at me,” Wonwoo groans. It hurts to swallow and he can barely breathe but he insists on doing a majority of the work anyway. It isn’t that Soonyoung is incapable, but Wonwoo wants to prove to him that it really is no big deal. He’s got a cold, not anything serious, and even if he does feel like a few cars have run him over, Wonwoo doesn’t want pity. He wants to do chemistry, get it over with as fast as he can, and then get back to his bed. He can nap for the rest of the day, because he doesn’t really care about missing his other classes. This one counts, though.

 

“I’m not laughing at you,” Soonyoung lies. He eyes the solution in the ice bath while Wonwoo puts the cap he discarded back on the indicator bottle.

 

“It sounded like you were.”

 

“I’m just making sure to savor this moment.”

 

“Why?”

 

Soonyoung grins over at him. “You just look a little pathetic.”

 

“Gee,” Wonwoo coughs, “thanks.”

 

“I mean it with love.”

 

At this, Wonwoo feels like a fever has come on. He puts a clammy hand to his forehead under his bangs. His temperature doesn’t seem too elevated. “Why do I feel so hot?” he complains, fanning himself weakly.

 

“Your cheeks are a little red,” Soonyoung points out. “Are you blushing?”

 

“Why would I be blushing?” Wonwoo swats the question out of the air, ignoring the obvious. “Is this what menopause feels like?”

 

“With all the nagging you do at me in this class,” Soonyoung comments, passing behind him to set a large beaker full of water on top of the warming hotplate, “I wouldn’t doubt that you’re actually a middle-aged woman on the inside.”

 

Even though Wonwoo doesn’t want pity, he makes the most of his situation. “I can’t believe you hate me,” he mocks. “I’m over here—” he coughs, only exaggerating a little— “feeling like shit, and you continue to push my buttons.”

 

“They’re easy to push, Wonwoo.”

 

Soonyoung says everything so matter-of-factly, including his name, which just makes Wonwoo feel even more on fire. His brain must be getting sick, too. Each time Soonyoung does something in the procedure, Wonwoo finds himself staring, watching his hands as they move beakers around and drop indicator into solutions. He can’t help but be mesmerized by how his partner takes charge of the experiment. Everything feels off. He heaves a sigh, but ends up coughing up half a lung in the process.

 

They’re both watching the various beakers containing the reactions; the one in the ice bath has yet to turn pink, whereas the one Soonyoung places in the hot water bath changes almost as soon as he drops in the indicator and times it.

 

“Five seconds, exactly,” Wonwoo murmurs, copying down the number in his notebook.

 

“Should we time the room temperature beaker now?”

 

Wonwoo nods. He restarts the stopwatch on his phone and lets it run when Soonyoung drops in the indicator. It takes longer this time, since the temperature is lower.

 

“Thirty-eight seconds.”

 

“So,” Soonyoung sounds like he’s on the brink of realization. The gears are turning in his head behind his eyes. “The higher the temperature, the faster the reaction?” When Wonwoo affirms this, he smiles knowingly, proud of the observation. “And that’s because…”

 

“Because lower temperatures slow the particles in the solution down. To have a reaction—” a sneeze— “the particles have to collide with each other, and they slow down when they get colder, so—” a disgusting-sounding cough “—it makes it harder for them to collide when they aren’t moving so fast. That’s why the hot solution was so fast. It’s also why the ice solution is taking much longer.”

 

Wonwoo feels a little out of breath from the explanation, but Soonyoung pats his shoulder again while he wipes up some spilled water on the benchtop, paper towel in one hand, other resting on Wonwoo’s back.

 

“You should be a teacher.”

 

“I should?”

 

Soonyoung throws his wet paper towel away and nods. “You explain things well.”

 

“It’s just common sense,” he says back. His eyes are glued to the beaker that still hasn’t reacted, floating in the larger beaker full of near-boiling water. “I don’t think I’m that good at it.”

 

“Even when your throat sounds that shitty, you still find a way to make it interesting,” Soonyoung grumbles this, as if he wants to say something without getting an argument out of him for once. “That’s more than a lot of teachers can do.”

 

He appreciates the sentiment. Wonwoo honestly thinks Soonyoung is trying harder than he had at the start of the semester, when he had had to be reminded of the very basics of chemistry just to get through a lab period. Now, he keeps up, and Wonwoo likes to think part of it is because of him. He still has yet to do the same in calculus, but he’ll take this ongoing victory as a victory nevertheless.

 

“It’s turning pink,” Soonyoung comments, snapping Wonwoo out of his thoughts. He hits the stop button on his partner’s phone when he sees the ice bath’s reaction for himself.

 

“Seven minutes and twenty-two seconds.”

 

“Sounds reasonable to me,” his partner shrugs, and once all their numbers are copied down, they clean up, Soonyoung taking the majority of the work in washing out the beakers.

 

All Wonwoo has to do is turn the hotplate off and unplug it. He sits back down on his stool and tries to ignore the pounding at his temples and the ache in his fingers. Gratitude for such an empathetic partner and yearning for his cozy dorm bed are the two things he feels just as strongly. Unfortunately, he can’t do much but sit through the post-lab discussion while Soonyoung takes the most diligent notes he’s ever seen him take thus far. Moving his pen is just too much work. Walking is too much work. Wonwoo nearly falls down by the time he and his partner get through the science building’s front doors.

 

Soonyoung stops him before he can go his own way. “Will, uh, will you be alright?” His eyes are upturned like he’s smiling, but none of his teeth show, lips instead set in a straight line.

 

Wonwoo holds the straps of his bag with his hands. “I hope so,” he says, which doesn’t seem like a good enough answer.

 

“Is your roommate back in your room?”

 

He nods. “He’ll be leaving for his first class when I come in. Chances are, he’ll stay out of there as much as he can because he doesn’t want to get sick.”

 

“That really sucks.”

 

“Yeah, a little,” he says. Soonyoung frowns. “But, I feel for him. I’m sneezing and coughing like crazy. I wouldn’t want to be around me, either.”

 

His partner mutters something about tissues and cough drops underneath his breath, but Wonwoo’s ears are too clogged to catch it. “Okay, well, you should totally sleep,” he says, messing with the hem of the hoodie he’s wearing, “and don’t worry about the post-lab stuff. I got it all down.”

 

Wonwoo manages a smile. “I know. Thank you.”

 

“It’s whatever,” he says, smiling back, the same half-embarrassed smirk Wonwoo is growing used to seeing from him. “Try not to get any worse. Like you said that one time, I, uh, need you for the rest of the year.”

 

He turns and walks away, going at a quicker pace than Wonwoo has seen before. Soonyoung goes the same way after each lab period, but today, he takes a different path down a different sidewalk, branching off toward the student center building. He doesn’t think much of it, because his mind is occupied with how great it’ll feel to put his flannel pajama pants back on and climb under his covers to sleep. When he gets back to his room, Jun sidesteps him and makes a point to cover his mouth as he heads out himself.

 

Wonwoo is just grateful everything is as it was left when he went to lab this morning. He puts his pajamas on, sets a tissue box on his bedside table, and gets into bed, headache drumming away in his ears.

 

He must fall asleep for a while. When Wonwoo opens his eyes again, the sun is setting outside and he feels ridiculously sweaty. The flannel pants don’t help much; he slips them off under his covers and relishes in the feeling of his bare legs against his comforter. The headache is still there, not as intense, but present. Jun is still gone. Since he doesn’t feel as shitty as he did this morning, Wonwoo pulls his laptop up out of his backpack at the side of his bed, opening it and going to Netflix. He’ll try to get through a few episodes of The Crown.

 

Except, he won’t, because as soon as an episode starts, someone’s knocking at his door. Wonwoo pulls the headphone out from his right ear. Does he want to get up to answer it? Not particularly, especially now that he’s only wearing boxers and a t-shirt. Should he, though? Probably, but he doubts whoever it is has any bad intent. Any serial killer coming to take him out in his own room surely wouldn’t knock so daintily.

 

“Come in,” he says, hoping it’s loud enough for them to hear. His voice and throat are taking the brunt of the cold he has.

 

The door opens and a head peeks around the corner, black bangs slightly windblown. “Guess who?” Soonyoung uses a dumb voice in a pretty bad effort at getting Wonwoo to smile, but somehow, it works.

 

“That’s such a vague question,” Wonwoo points out. His lab partner comes in hastily, shutting the door behind him as if he’s trying to hide something. He does have a grocery bag in one hand, which Wonwoo notices right away, but he plays it off by greeting him. “I could be hallucinating because I’m dying. I don’t have my contacts in, either.”

 

Soonyoung sets the grocery bag down at the end of Wonwoo’s bed and stands there, arms crossed. “You wear contacts?”

 

“I do. Mostly because these,” he reaches into the drawer on his bedside table, grabbing the case for his glasses, which he flips open, “make me look like a librarian.” Wonwoo puts his specs on and looks at Soonyoung, who smiles down at him.

 

“They do,” he says, leaning in to take a closer look. “They’re classy, though. Kind of pretentious, but classy.”

 

“I feel like less of a dork with contacts.”

 

“No use in hiding the obvious.” Soonyoung teases. “I, uh, brought you some things,” he says, fiddling with the handles of the grocery bag. Wonwoo squints.

 

“You did?”

 

“Yes.” Soonyoung pulls out a package of cough drops—the yellow, honey kind, which Wonwoo could definitely eat like candy—and sets it aside. He also has a box of ginger mint tea bags and a mini bottle of orange juice, which he hands to Wonwoo right away. It’s ice cold, and he cracks open the top to take a small sip, instantly soothing the rawness in his throat.

 

“You didn’t have to get me all of this,” he says, but Soonyoung holds up a hand.

 

“Oh, I know,” he asserts, “but I wanted to because you looked so pitiful being unable to do anything in lab and your roommate doesn’t want to be around you, so I thought, you know what? I’m going to be the nicest, most caring lab partner in the history of lab partners and get you a bunch of sick people things to make you feel better.”

 

Soonyoung rambles on until he looks pleased with himself. Wonwoo takes another sip from his orange juice, lips pursed, trying not to laugh at him.

 

“I’m not going to owe you one, am I?”

 

“What, I’m not allowed to be a good friend without you thinking it’s shady?”

 

“I didn’t say that,” Wonwoo laughs, seeing how dejected Soonyoung looks. His body is too tired to be joking around, but it comes naturally. “I’m just messing with you. Thank you for all this stuff,” he gestures. “Did you do all the shopping in the student center?”

 

Soonyoung nods. “Yeah! Can you believe they had tea bags?” He holds the box up and waves it around, looking at it like it can’t be real. “I didn’t know what kind is best for treating death, so I just googled ‘teas for colds.’”

 

“I think ginger is good for sore throats,” Wonwoo hums. “As you can tell, my voice is pretty much gone.”

 

“Then stop talking, you idiot.”

 

“You have a point. You talk enough for two people.”

 

“Well,” Soonyoung says, shrugging, “I mean, keep talking if you want to. I know I never shut up, but, you know, if it’s just me making jokes to myself, the conversation gets a little boring.”

 

“Are you not busy right now?”

 

Wonwoo’s question catches him off-guard. Soonyoung blinks, shakes his head, and shifts back and forth on his feet. “Some of my calc friends are at dinner,” he admits. “I usually eat with them.”

 

“What the heck? Why are you still here, then? Go eat.”

 

He shakes his head. “No, it’s okay. They can miss me for a while. Aren’t you lonely?”

 

“I mean…” Wonwoo trails off, sniffling, thinking about how if he says yes, Soonyoung will seem to take it as an invitation to hang around him, sacrificing dinner for nothing important. If he says no, Soonyoung will call him a liar anyway, so Wonwoo just bites his tongue. “I don’t think you’re gaining anything by sticking around,” he says. “You’ll just catch whatever I have. You should go eat. You’ve gotta be hungry.”

 

When Soonyoung gets annoyed—as Wonwoo has often seen during experiments in lab—he’ll huff and puff underneath his breath, stomp his feet around slightly, and curse at nothing in particular. Now, though, he just exhales loudly out of his nose. His self-control is astounding. “What are you watching?” He points to Wonwoo’s laptop.

 

“Netflix. It’s a show called The Crown,” he turns the screen so he can see, “and it’s about the British royal family and Queen Elizabeth and all that stuff.”

 

“You’re into history?”

 

“I’m into everything,” Wonwoo says flatly. “Everything that’s interesting, at least, which is a lot.”

 

Soonyoung brushes this off with a giggle. “First, you’re a chemistry genius. Now, you watch shows about British history. You’re, like, a Renaissance man.”

 

“There’s just so many cool things to learn about. It’s a nice feeling when something comes up in a conversation and I can pull out some obscure, relevant fact I read about on Wikipedia or watched in a documentary,” he explains. “You have no idea how hard it was to pick a major. I wanted to go with history, then psychology, then English. Somehow, I ended up here.”

 

Sitting down at the end of his bed, Soonyoung crosses his legs and keeps his eyes on Wonwoo as he goes on about school. “Now introducing the university’s first quadruple major,” he says in a low voice, drumming on his knees before he points to fingers in his direction. “I’m surprised you don’t get tired of me for having, like, three brain cells.”

 

Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “You don’t have three brain cells.”

 

“I don’t have as many as you do.”

 

“Besides,” Wonwoo goes on, “why would I ever get tired of you? You’re a good friend. It’s not like you can help what you’re interested in, or what you like.”

 

Soonyoung’s eyes are wide, and at first, Wonwoo is afraid he’s said something wrong, but that wouldn’t seem reasonable. Nothing he said was hurtful. Thankfully, the look doesn’t last long, but their eye contact remains unbroken when Soonyoung starts nodding his head. “That makes a lot of sense,” he comments.

 

“Well, yeah.”

 

Something feels weird. “Our tastes must just be different,” Soonyoung says. It sounds like he’s talking to himself, thoughtful tone of voice reminding Wonwoo of how he has to read the lab procedures aloud to understand them. “I’ll stop blaming you for having an IQ of over a thousand,” he jokes, now smirking.

 

“If I had an IQ that high, I’d be at Harvard.”

 

“In that case, it’s a good thing you don’t, because your lab partner at Harvard would probably not be as funny or as cute as your lab partner here,” Soonyoung says, and Wonwoo thinks it’s a wink that he gives him, but it looks more like his eye twitches. He bursts out laughing and then goes straight into a hearty cough.

 

“Never do that again,” he wheezes.

 

“Do what?” Soonyoung asks stupidly. He winks once more, this time shutting one eye fully and letting the other one close partially.

 

“You’re trying to wink but it isn’t smooth,” he says.

 

“So, you find it charming?” Another wink. It’s barely improving. Wonwoo just finds it funny at this point.

 

“You should stop trying so hard,” he points out. “It looks too forced.”

 

“How about now?” he asks, turning his head away and then turning back to face him. This time, he lets it look more natural, and Wonwoo still laughs, but quieter. It’s funny, but mostly cute, and he can’t stop himself from chuckling.

 

“That was good,” he admits.

 

“See? Be glad you don’t have some snooty, Ivy League lab partner.”

 

“I am, actually.”

 

Soonyoung doesn’t seem willing to budge from his spot sitting on his bed, and Jun is still not back, so Wonwoo does what anyone does when stuck inside sick, chatty lab partner insisting he keep himself around for company: he suggests watching The Crown. He unplugs his earbuds from his laptop and lets it rest in between them against the wall so that they can both see the screen. Surprisingly, Soonyoung doesn’t turn up his nose. Wonwoo steals a few glances here and there, and he seems into it, back hunched while the episode plays out.

 

Now, he has no shame in admitting to himself that he’s glad his lab partner didn’t go to dinner. It’s endearing to watch Soonyoung get so involved in the drama of the show; Wonwoo calms him down a few times when he starts exclaiming things at the screen.

 

“This is fucking wild,” he breathes, shaking his head as an episode ends, “I had no idea all this shit went down.”

 

“History books don’t really explain all the scandal and personal stuff,” Wonwoo agrees. “That’s why I like it. There are a million sides to one story.”

 

“You’re telling me. How the hell are they gonna continue it if the Queen is still alive? Like, will they get that far?”

 

“I have no idea,” he laughs. “There are only two seasons on Netflix right now.”

 

Soonyoung scoffs. “Well, they better hurry up and get to all the juicy stuff with Charles and Diana. All that shit is so dirty. A bunch of my old aunts always used to gossip about that sort of thing when I was younger.”

 

“Hopefully, the show lives up to your expectations,” Wonwoo humors him. “Wanna watch another episode?”

 

“We’ve already watched two…” he trails off, looking at his hands. Wonwoo does suppose he has a life of his own, obligations of his own, homework to do and such. He’s having fun, though. Being sick is the worst, but having someone around makes him feel cheerier, at least.

 

“Yeah, you’re right,” he answers, shifting so he can sit up more. “You probably have stuff to do.”

 

“Not really.” Soonyoung looks at him sheepishly after jumping in so quick. “I mean, I do have physics homework, but that can wait until tomorrow. The fate of the kingdom can’t,” he reasons it out to Wonwoo, but it looks like he’s actually trying to convince himself he’s in the right.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Definitely. Hit play. Let’s go.”

 

Two episodes later, Soonyoung finally decides to get up. He puts all the things from the grocery bag on Wonwoo’s bedside table, and he doesn’t let him get a word in when he says goodbye from the door. “You better drink that tea,” he says, “and don’t bring the plague to lab next week, or else you’ll be the one taking care of me.” The door shuts and then reopens again, but it’s not Soonyoung who comes in.

 

“What the heck was that about?” Jun comes in and throws his backpack down by the closet they share. “Wasn’t that the guy who brought me back here that one time? Jeesh,” he sighs, sitting down on his bed, “that feels like forever ago. Who was he?” he repeats.

 

“Soonyoung,” Wonwoo says. “He’s my friend. My chem lab partner,” he adds. “We were watching Netflix.”

 

“Did he know you’re contagious?”

 

“Yes,” he rolls his eyes, “and he brought me some tea and cough drops.”

 

“Aww,” Jun teases. “That’s so cute.”

 

Wonwoo eyes him. “Uh, yeah? I guess? He was just being nice.” How he defends himself prompts Jun to look at him, unsatisfied with his reaction. Was Wonwoo supposed to find it cute that Soonyoung kept him company? His partner had described it as taking care of him, which might be true, but Jun seems to think it’s romantic with the way he’s looking at him from across the room.

 

“Well, I think it’s cute,” he concludes. “Are you guys a thing?”

 

“A thing?”

 

“A thing,” he echoes. Wonwoo doesn’t know if he feels nauseous from all the mucus in his sinuses or because of his roommate’s comments.

 

“He’s just my lab partner,” he says. He shifts his eyes to his phone in his hand. “It’s not like that at all. We’re friends.”

 

“I might ask him out then,” Jun ponders. Wonwoo closes his eyes for a moment and then opens them, ignoring the voiced thoughts of the very pesky roommate on the other bed. What is he trying to get out of him? He doesn’t react, but he stiffens briefly, and Jun goes on. “I think he’s adorable. He has nice style.”

 

An image of Soonyoung pops up in Wonwoo’s mind. Yes, he thinks, he does dress nice, even though Wonwoo doesn’t really notice his clothes all that much. Is he adorable? Wonwoo wouldn’t say so. Adorable insinuates innocence. Soonyoung is the devil in disguise at times. So, he smirks to himself. “You go ahead and do that, Jun.”

 

Apparently, Jun must’ve been expecting something different, which is obvious to Wonwoo, who knew he’d been joking with the whole asking-out thing. “Maybe I will,” he says. “You won’t be jealous?”

 

“Why would I be jealous?” Wonwoo raises his voice and laughs, words cracking with how weak his throat still is. “He’s just Soonyoung.”

 

“Nevermind,” Jun gives him a dirty look. Take that, he thinks. Wonwoo is not one to fall into traps. It’s why he doesn’t bother gossiping about his own life with people, because when he knows someone like Jun, he also knows he’ll twist it and tease him for it, no matter how minor.

 

Soonyoung is Soonyoung. He’s nice sometimes, funny most times, very embarrassing to be around, and definitely not adorable. Wonwoo doesn’t get how Jun sees anything there, considering Wonwoo hasn’t shown interest in the slightest. He hasn’t because, well, Soonyoung is Soonyoung. It doesn’t make sense, but Wonwoo knows that much for sure. He’s a friend, a lab partner, and he’s Soonyoung. The Venn Diagram is clear in his head. Nowhere in there does it say he’s desirable, or dateable, and Wonwoo is content enough with what he has.

 

Jun can try all he wants, but Wonwoo is happy remaining unambiguous.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 **Xe(g)+2F** **2** **(g)→XeF** **4** **(s)**

_A reaction between xenon and fluorine that produces xenon tetrafluoride. This product was the first binary compound of a noble gas that was discovered, binary meaning chemical compound composed of two elements. Xenon, being a noble gas, had previously been thought to be completely inert: it would not react with anything._

 

“Did you shrink? Last time I saw you, it was harder to see you laughing at me.”

 

Thanksgiving gives Wonwoo a break from school. It’s just a few days, but he’s able to go home and be with his family as the holiday season starts. Of course, the minute his best friend knows he’s in residence, he comes knocking on his window. Being next-door neighbors has shown its share of perks, but Wonwoo still hasn’t grown used to Jihoon making the short jump from rooftop to rooftop unannounced.

 

It’s the first thing he says when Wonwoo helps him inside from the tall window in his room. “I can promise you I’ve stayed exactly the same height,” he says. Jihoon gives him a look, one that Wonwoo knows means he thinks he’s a big, fat liar, but Wonwoo doesn’t bat an eye.

 

“You can’t pull that shit with me,” he says, sounding angry but smiling through it. He punches Wonwoo’s shoulder, playfully but still hard.

 

“You’ve been going to the gym, haven’t you?”

 

Jihoon’s laugh provides Wonwoo with a sense of familiarity. He’s missed him. They don’t text as much as they should, he knows, one-on-one or in the group chat with the rest of their friends from high school. Wonwoo was always closest to him. Two sides of the same coin is what everyone said about them; they were always inclined to disagree, but never inclined to do anything about it, some weird sense of similarity formed from the start, and the rest is history. Wonwoo is just glad to see him.

 

They clamber down the creaky staircase and into the kitchen, where Wonwoo’s parents are intent on polishing silverware for the big dinner they’ll be having tomorrow. “I don’t see why you guys can’t just use paper plates,” Jihoon comments, and they look up at him, equally as surprised and happy to see him. He returns their smiles. “We always do that, and the food tastes exactly the same.”

 

“Fine China is much more aesthetically pleasing than Dixie cups and Zoopals plates,” Wonwoo says, going to the pantry to get snacks. There are a few bags of chips; he grabs two of them and Jihoon opens the fridge to get a couple mini Coke bottles.

 

“Mock us all you want. We’re not stuck cleaning dishes for a week after.”

 

Jihoon follows Wonwoo back upstairs and into his room. For a moment, he feels like a senior in high school again, and although not much has changed in a few months, everything feels weird, like settling into their old routine of eating junk food and playing Xbox isn’t the right thing to do anymore. He feels like their conversations won’t be as mundane since they both have been apart for awhile. Now, they actually are different. Now, Wonwoo thinks, Jihoon has a life that isn’t taking place right next door.

 

“So,” he says, right after shoving a few Doritos in his mouth. Wonwoo glares at him until he chews his food before he goes on. “How are things?”

 

“Things are good,” Wonwoo laughs. He turns the Xbox on before sitting back down on the floor next to Jihoon. The TV is on a giant, wood chest that’s been in his room longer than he has, and from their position on the ground at the foot of Wonwoo’s bed, Jihoon always has to crane his neck more. “How are things with you?”

 

“Just peachy,” he says.

 

“That doesn’t sound so peachy.”

 

“I need to vent, but first, I need to kill some zombies. Let’s play Call of Duty.”

 

“Zombies is so old, though.”

 

Jihoon shrugs. “An oldie but a goodie. We’re playing it.” Wonwoo usually holds his ground, but decides it’d be best to let Jihoon take out whatever frustration he’s apparently feeling. He’s interested in hearing him vent; Jihoon isn’t one to talk about emotional things, things that bother him, and Wonwoo wants to be all ears.

 

Call of Duty zombies mode, to Wonwoo, is monotonous. He goes through the motions, repeating the things he’d mastered back in his early teenage years when he used to watch playthroughs on Youtube to learn every secret of the game. Jihoon, however, always does it himself. He never cheats, never takes shortcuts. Wonwoo respects that, but always ends up helping him out of sticky situations he could have avoided had he learned the same way.

 

“What’s this about venting?” Wonwoo makes sure there’s a lull in the game before asking.

 

“So, you know how I texted in the group chat about the bio lab partner I have?” he asks. Wonwoo thinks, vaguely remembering something about a weird sophomore being assigned to work with him. His mind goes to his own partner, who he hadn’t seen before the break, as lab had been cancelled.

 

“Yeah? What about him?”

 

“Apparently he has a crush on me,” Jihoon says plainly. Wonwoo almost laughs at how nonchalantly he says it. “But the thing is, I never told him to have a crush on me. Do you see the problem?”

 

“Uh, no?”

 

Jihoon kills a zombie that corners him, and then gets sidetracked killing a few more. “Motherfucker,” he hisses, and Wonwoo runs over to revive him. “The problem,” he stresses, “is that he’s my lab partner.”

 

Something about the whole situation makes Wonwoo feel odd. He tries to put himself in his best friend’s position: weird lab partner has a crush on you, now what? “I still don’t understand the problem,” he says, taking a quick sip of his Coke. “Is it, like, a rule that you can’t date your lab partners?”

 

“Well, no, but isn’t it frowned upon?”

 

Wonwoo doesn’t think he’s being serious, until he side-eyes him and notices the frown, gaze glued to the rapid fire of his zombie-killing weapon of choice. “Jihoon, it isn’t like the damn British monarchy,” he says.

 

“Oh, there you go again with the references to The Crown,” he says, sarcasm masked by a laugh. “I know it isn’t, but how will he work and stay focused if he dates me? That just fucks up the productivity.”

 

“Do you like him, too?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“What do you mean you don't know?” he questions. “It’s pretty easy to know if you have feelings for someone. You think they’re easy to talk to, funny, you do things for them, all that stuff.”

 

“If that were the case,” Jihoon wonders aloud, looking over at him briefly, eyes narrowing, “then we’d be eligible for marriage.”

 

Wonwoo snorts. While it is true, he knows Jihoon loves to mess with him like that. Even their parents refer to them as a married couple; they always argue in public and then end up brushing their heated conversations off to pick up another time, although it never happens because they find something to agree on before all their disparities come back into mind.

 

“You’re right,” he agrees, “but with someone you actually like, it’s different.”

 

“Who’s to say I don’t actually like you?”

 

“Uh, me,” Wonwoo states. Jihoon smiles at him, sighing.

 

“You know me too well,” he nods. “So,” the topic shifts back to the lab partner, “say I were to accept this dude’s advances. He’s a year older than me.”

 

“There’s literally nothing wrong with that.”

 

“Yeah…” Jihoon trails off, digging his nails into the back of the controller. “I guess I’m just coming up with all these excuses for no reason. When he first asked me to get smoothies with him, I lied and told him I was allergic to fruit.”

 

“That is so not right.”

 

“I know,” he laughs. “I could see he didn’t believe me, but he’s way too nice to say anything about it.”

 

Wonwoo smiles. “What’s his name again?”

 

“Seungcheol. He’s a biology major, so the lab is something that’s required for him. For me, though,” he sips from his drink, and then ends up gulping down half the bottle, “it’s just a general requirement. It’s just one lab I have to take for no reason because my school is a piece of shit that won’t let me start all my major work even though I could pass those classes with flying colors.”

 

“You’re still in music, huh?”

 

Jihoon nods, eyes turning to Wonwoo briefly before snapping back to the screen. The corner of his mouth twitches like he wants to get cocky about it; he never shuts up about chord progressions in pop songs or the pitches that ordinary things make (the oven timer in Wonwoo’s kitchen is an F#), and Wonwoo knows how much it makes him happy to spurt out musical terms that no one understands but him. It’s his own space.

 

“Still in music,” he echoes. “But, I’m a huge dumbass because I have yet to pass my piano proficiency test, so I started taking lessons with the piano professor in my free time. It’s adding to this whole stress thing.”

 

“I thought you were great at piano!” Wonwoo has heard him play. Granted, the last time was at the school’s talent show a year and a half ago, but it was good from what he remembers.

 

“I am,” Jihoon says. He’s close to dying again. Wonwoo nearly gets them both killed trying to revive him. “That’s because I’m great at playing by ear. I hear something, I play. I don’t ever read the sheet music they put in front of me, and I only know one scale, so I’m apparently not proficient enough to be a music major yet.”

 

“That’s stupid,” Wonwoo says. Jihoon uses one hand to eat more Doritos and the other to help Wonwoo take back a room that’s filling up with zombies. “If any other subject was like that, I wouldn’t be able to do school.”

 

“Speaking of school, how are you doing?” Jihoon asks. “Still got those perfect grades of yours, Mr. Know-it-all?”

 

Remembering his first chem lab, Wonwoo grins over at him. “It’s funny you say that. I do,” he admits, “and that nickname is following me around, too.” He hears it in Soonyoung’s voice when he thinks of it. This prompts a mental note to text him and tell him Happy Thanksgiving. He also finds himself missing his presence, especially since he hasn’t seen him since last week when they were doing their lab report.

 

“Good. Serves you right for being a freak with a giant brain.”

 

“You know you love me,” Wonwoo insists, leaning over to knock their knees together. “I may be a freak, but at least I’m not a freak’s best friend.”

 

“Watch it, buddy,” Jihoon mutters. “This controller could fit many places.”

 

“And if you were actually serious about that threat,” Wonwoo adds, “I’m sure it would have been in those places a long time ago. Watch your back.” There are zombies surrounding them both, and Wonwoo manages to get himself away before he goes down. Jihoon, on the other hand, fires a string of curse words at the TV screen.

 

“Your ass better be back here reviving me in three seconds.”

 

Wonwoo does it without a problem. Jihoon, being the stickler that he is, never offers a thank you to him. “You know,” Wonwoo says, “I really think that if this dude likes you, you shouldn’t blame him.”

 

“Who said I was blaming him?” he scoffs. “I just think he’s a little weird for it. Like, come on,” Jihoon looks over, and Wonwoo raises an eyebrow. “You’re telling me some sophomore has the choice of anyone in that lab—no, anyone on the damn campus—and he has a crush on me? Seriously? I’m so average.”

 

Wonwoo relates but denies it when Jihoon says it. Jihoon has never been average. He excels at everything he does. If the average amount of time a normal teenager sleeps is nine hours, Jihoon will sleep for eleven and then take a two-hour nap later. If being a good musician is average, Jihoon proves he’s better by getting full-ride scholarship offers to every conservatory he applied to for college, all because of the things he’s composed. “You are definitely above average,” Wonwoo voices. “If anyone’s the average one, it’s me.”

 

“Oh, don’t give me that shit. You were salutatorian. You had, like, a GPA of five at the end of last year. You’re smart as hell. I can never keep up when you start rambling about science.” Jihoon rolls his eyes as if this is supposed to make him feel better.

 

“I’m still average,” Wonwoo shrugs. “I don’t have anyone with a crush on me. That makes you more above-average than me.”

 

“Point taken. I’ll take it that you don’t have a weird, sophomore lab partner wanting to date you?”

 

“Not really,” Wonwoo answers him. He stares into space for a moment. “He is weird, but he’s our age. We’re friends,” he adds. “He reminds me a little of you, except not as bossy.”

 

“I’m bossy?”

 

“What, you think you aren’t?”

 

Jihoon smirks. “Maybe slightly,” he says. “Is he cute?”

 

Wonwoo hesitates, shooting another zombie. “I mean, I don’t know how to answer that.”

 

“That’s not a good answer, Wonwoo.”

 

“Why not? God, what is it with my friends trying to set me up? My roommate tries to make this huge deal out of it,” Wonwoo says, recalling each time in the past month Jun has grilled him with questions about his relationship status, the same smug smile on his face each time Wonwoo insisted that he’s allowed to be friends with someone without wanting to be anything else. “He keeps saying he can feel people’s auras or something, like he’s a medium.”

 

Jihoon snorts. “What an idiot. I’m not trying to set you up, I just wanna know if he’s cute…worth your time, per say.”

 

“Well, you’re being weird about it like Jun,” Wonwoo snaps, a little too feisty. “Sorry, it’s just… Soonyoung is a good friend. We’ve meshed well from the start. It kind of freaks me out.”

 

“Oh, is that his name?”

 

“Yeah, why?”

 

“No reason,” he replies, sounding casual enough if Wonwoo were to ignore the fact that he pauses the game and pulls his phone from his pocket, opening Instagram to search. A page comes up and Jihoon taps on it, looking satisfied. Wonwoo looks to snoop, and then finds himself lunging at him to grab his phone. Jihoon, as always, is too quick.

 

“This is him, huh?” He waves the screen in front of Wonwoo briefly; what he can see of the picture isn’t much, but it’s a selfie, he can tell.

 

“Jihoon, you’re such a creep. Stop stalking him.”

 

“He’s very chubby,” he says.

 

“He’s not chubby,” Wonwoo shoots back. “He has really chubby cheeks, but he’s not actually chubby.”

 

“I’d rate him a solid six out of ten.”

 

“And what do you rate me?”

 

“A two, on a good day.”

 

Wonwoo gives up trying to get Jihoon off of Soonyoung’s Instagram, retreating to his position on the floor, cross-legged and placid. “I’d rate you a one,” he mutters, smiling when Jihoon rolls his eyes. He looks at his phone for another second or two and then locks it and puts it away.

 

“You know I’m just messing with you, right?”

 

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says. He ignores the knot in his stomach; thinking about Soonyoung like that makes him uncomfortable, especially since it’s Jihoon who grills him now and not Jun. Jihoon can see through anything. Wonwoo is sure he can actually read minds, although that notion is even more ridiculous and unlikely than the one of Soonyoung having a crush on him. He’s never shown signs of it, so Wonwoo doesn’t find it necessary to worry himself about it. He’s probably just trying to ignore his own emotions; Jihoon, although very open and honest once you get to know him, has never been all that great at making known how big of a heart he has. Wonwoo can tell he cares, though. He just has funny ways of channeling it.

 

Wonwoo’s parents call up and tell him that they want him to help with cleaning, so Jihoon goes back to his own room, jumping the distance between their rooftops. Each time he does it makes Wonwoo nervous. As always, Jihoon makes a point to fake a trip and act like he’s going to fall, and he laughs when Wonwoo presses up against his window to yell at him.

 

His entire life is plagued with friends that love to push his buttons; Jihoon, Soonyoung, and Jun all have that much in common, at least.

 

He spends two more days at home, enjoying the hot, home-cooked food he gets to devour at Thanksgiving. The dining hall food at school is no match for either of his parents’ skills in the kitchen. By the time he packs up some leftovers for the mini-fridge in his dorm room and leaves, Wonwoo is ready to get into the swing of things again. Christmas would be just around the corner, but the semester is wrapping up now and finals are in sight. That thought alone is enough to push him to get motivated.

 

When he makes it back, Jun nearly tackles him when he comes into their room.

 

“I missed you so much!” he declares, pulling him into a hug and shaking him as he stands in the doorway, helpless and still holding onto his bags.

 

“I missed you, too,” Wonwoo laughs. “What’s with all the affection?”

 

Jun pulls himself away and blinks rapidly. He grabs the tote bag full of tupperware containers in Wonwoo’s hand and brings it over to their small fridge, opening it and stacking the leftovers wherever they’ll fit. Wonwoo puts the bag with his clothes on his bed. “No reason,” Jun answers him. The smile is evident in his voice.

 

“You sound suspicious.”

 

“Do I?” he asks, looking over his shoulder. “Well, you have nothing to be suspicious of.”

 

Taking the things out of his bag, Wonwoo thinks over his words. “See,” he starts, taking his folded clothes over to put in the closet, “that just makes me more suspicious. Spill the beans.” He starts hanging up his shirts on hangers; to be safe, he’d brought a few nice ones home, just in case one of them got messed up somehow.

 

“There are no beans,” Jun says. “But, I have a hypothetical question for you.”

 

“Which is?”

 

“Now, this is purely hypothetical,” he assures him, getting up from the floor in front of the fridge to come stand behind Wonwoo at the closet, hands on his hips. “Say I were to get someone flowers as a dramatic act of confession.” Wonwoo looks at him over his shoulder as he folds underwear.

 

“What kind of—”

 

“Shh!” Jun holds a finger up to Wonwoo’s face and he swats it away, turning back around with a shake of his head. “Let me finish. So, hypothetically, if I were to get someone I like flowers, what kind of flower would be most romantic?”

 

Wonwoo thinks this over, ignoring the fact that it’s a very weird question in the first place. “I don’t know, roses? No one’s ever gotten me flowers. I have no idea.”

 

“That’s why it’s hypothetical,” Jun stresses. He paces the floor as Wonwoo finishes up his folding, shutting the drawer he puts his underwear in.

 

“Well, why ask me? Ask someone who knows about romantic stuff. I’m surprised you don’t have the answer to your own question,” he says, sliding past Jun to go sit on his bed. Wonwoo reclines, picking up his phone from where it lays atop his sheets.

 

Jun goes to his own bed and sits on its edge, leaning forward. “Look,” he says, and Wonwoo raises an eyebrow, “it’s a simple question.”

 

“And I answered it. Roses.”

 

“Are roses your favorite?”

 

“Well, no,” Wonwoo admits. “What—why does it matter what my favorite flower is?”

 

“It doesn’t,” Jun says casually, “but in a hypothetical situation—”

 

“If you say the word hypothetically one more time,” he sighs, “I will hypothetically beat a new vocabulary into that head of yours.”

 

“Roses it is, then,” Jun declares, jumping up from his sitting position. “You,” he points, “have just helped me a great deal, my friend.”

 

Wonwoo doesn’t bother asking what it is he’s helped with. If Jun wanted to give someone flowers, surely he’d do his own research, or ask the person in question what their own preference is. Having never been a subject of romantic interest, Wonwoo threw his answer out there based on movies and clichés. To him, roses aren’t all that compelling. No flower is, to be honest. He’s more of a succulent person. Maybe small cacti.

 

“You wouldn’t happen to know where your lab partner’s room is, would you?”

 

Jun is pacing again. Wonwoo looks up from his phone. “Why?”

 

“Oh,” he says, “no reason. I wanted to ask him where he shops.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

His roommate nods, although Wonwoo doesn’t buy it. “Totally. He’s very stylish. I wanna take a page from his book.”

 

“If that’s some sort of innuendo for something, I don’t want to know. But yeah,” he adds, “I know. Room 617.”

 

He hasn’t noticed, but Jun is slipping his shoes on and heading for the door. “Thank you, dearest,” he calls, and Wonwoo gives him a look as he leaves.

 

The whole Soonyoung-is-so-stylish excuse is very fishy to Wonwoo. It was such a weird segue from flowers, too, and that gets him thinking more. Jun was definitely joking when he mentioned asking Soonyoung out a while ago… or was he? What does getting someone flowers have to do with anything whatsoever? And to suddenly ask where Soonyoung lives? Confusion settles itself in Wonwoo’s chest, making him feel a little panicky. Jun can’t date Soonyoung. Well, he could if he wanted, but it’d be weird. No, why would it be weird? Wonwoo mentally slaps himself. He doesn’t think of his partner like that. Jun can have him.

 

Except, no, Jun can’t have him, because it’s a strange thought and Wonwoo wishes he could put a finger on why he keeps thinking about his roommate and Soonyoung like that. It obviously makes no sense.

 

When classes start back up and he goes to lab on Tuesday morning, Wonwoo feels jumpier than ever. Soonyoung comes in at his usual time and takes the seat next to him, but when he suddenly pulls the stool out, it knocks Wonwoo out of his thoughts and he looks startled until he realizes who it is.

 

“Dude,” Soonyoung greets him, slapping a hand on his shoulder, “are you okay? You look like you just shit your pants.”

 

“I’m fine,” Wonwoo says, looking over. “You just scared me.”

 

“I never scare you.”

 

“If you want to get technical, you always scare me,” he points out. Soonyoung grips his shoulder tighter and Wonwoo winces, getting the hint. “Okay, okay, sorry.”

 

“You were saying?” his partner smiles sweetly, eyes shining. He moves his arm back and looks satisfied with himself as he takes his notebook out of his bag.

 

“Nothing, you bully,” he grumbles. “What’s all that?” Soonyoung’s notebook has the procedure on the top half of the page and scribbled equations on the bottom half.

 

“Oh,” he says, looking surprised, “this is… well, it’s the math for the lab. I, uh, did some research beforehand.” Soonyoung grins and his eyes disappear under the apples of his cheeks. Wonwoo is impressed. That’s so unlike him. He rubs the back of his neck as if he’s embarrassed Wonwoo had noticed.

 

Pulling the notebook over and scanning it, Wonwoo tries to decipher the words Soonyoung used to fill the places of numbers they’ll acquire in the experiment today. “Wow,” he says. “Why’d you do all this so soon? Could it not wait until Thursday?” He raises his eyebrows, stifling a laugh. “You can admit to me you’re excited about chemistry, now,” he teases, nudging Soonyoung’s arm with an elbow.

 

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself,” he argues, sliding his notebook back in front of him. “I just got bored over the break. I didn’t go home, so I figured I’d make my job a little easier in advance. Future Soonyoung will thank me.”

 

Wonwoo laughs, feeling oddly… affectionate? No, that isn’t it. He’s just shocked Soonyoung decided to work ahead on chemistry of all things, especially since he has so many other more relevant classes he could be doing homework for. Maybe it’s pride, but Wonwoo wouldn’t use that word either. He isn’t a parent. He just thinks it’s cute. Cute? Yes, he thinks, nodding to himself.

 

“What?” Soonyoung asks. “Why are you nodding?”

 

“Hmm? Oh, no reason.”

 

“Stop being a dork.”

 

“Only if you do.”

 

Lab goes by fast. It’s the last one they have where they’ll be doing experiments relevant to what they learn at the time in their respective lecture periods, because next week, they’ll start deciding final projects. Now, as they’re finishing out the semester with spectroscopy and different wavelengths, they spend the lab testing different chemical solutions in spectroscopes hooked up to ancient, school-owned laptops with the compatible software to analyze the data. It’s all very methodical; Wonwoo is able to talk as he goes through the procedure that becomes muscle memory after the second trial.

 

“Jun asked me a really weird question the other day,” he says out-of-the-blue, looking at the graph that pops up on the computer screen after Soonyoung starts the spectroscope.

 

“What was it?”

 

“Something like if someone were to get me flowers, which ones I’d like or whatever. He kept saying it was hypothetical, which makes me think he’s plotting something.”

 

His partner taps his fingers along the tabletop, eyes focused on his own movements. “Yeah,” he responds, “that is weird.”

 

Wonwoo, as nosy as he is at the moment, notices that Soonyoung’s voice changes. He’s quieter, more reserved. He tries to brush it off as the same confusion he himself has and returns to what he’s doing with the computer software. They work for another twenty minutes or so before post-lab starts, and Wonwoo gets bored enough to start flicking tiny wads of paper at the boy beside him. He tears off small pieces from his notebook and aims for Soonyoung’s hair.

 

His partner just side-eyes him, holding back a smile. “Why are you like this?” he whispers underneath the drone of their professor’s voice.

 

Wonwoo smirks. He’s grown comfortable enough with Soonyoung, which means he’s intent on provoking him by any means necessary. He flicks another paper ball and it hits his partner’s cheek, rebounding onto the benchtop. “Your reactions are funny,” he whispers back.

 

“You’re acting like a five-year-old.”

 

Crinkling his nose, Wonwoo sticks his tongue out in mocking as he directs more paper balls at Soonyoung’s head. The other boy just giggles to himself, quiet enough to be ignored by the professor and the other groups, but audible enough to make Wonwoo feel content in his actions. When the period ends, he feels refreshed. All that’s left to do is work on the final project until the semester ends. Right. The semester is ending.

 

“You wouldn’t happen to be taking chem lab next semester, would you?” Wonwoo voices the thought to Soonyoung, who packs up his things next to him. He shakes his head.

 

“I don’t think so. Math majors only need one semester of a lab science,” he says.

 

“Ah.”

 

They leave the room together, and all of a sudden, Soonyoung wraps an arm around Wonwoo’s shoulders, cheeky look on his face. Wonwoo doesn’t fight him off, but he does laugh stupidly enough to make Soonyoung laugh, too. “You’re gonna miss me, aren’t you?” he taunts, turning their position into more of a headlock as they walk through the building.

 

“Don’t be cocky,” Wonwoo snorts. He pulls himself out of Soonyoung’s mock chokehold.

 

“Admit it. I’m a great friend, but an even greater lab partner.”

 

Once they’re outside, the brisk, early winter air bites at Wonwoo’s exposed face; he sees Soonyoung pull a scarf from the pocket of his coat and watches as he drapes it around his neck, wrapping it so that everything but his eyes are covered. “That looks warm,” Wonwoo comments, bumping his shoulder against his partner’s.

 

“If you admit you’ll miss me, I’ll let you have it.”

 

Raising an eyebrow, Wonwoo looks at him. They’ve reached the point in the sidewalk where they usually split apart, but they stand still talking. “Guess I’m gonna be cold on the walk across campus,” he shrugs. “I won’t have to miss you. It’s not like we’ll stop being friends when the semester is over.”

 

“Hey,” Soonyoung holds up his hands. “You don’t know that.”

 

“Well, I don’t,” Wonwoo agrees, “but I can certainly hope you stick around.” He reaches out and pokes Soonyoung’s arm. His partner’s eyes show that he’s smiling under the fabric of his scarf. With his own finger, he returns the poke.

 

“We still have our projects to do, nerd. Stop trying to get rid of me so soon.”

 

With that, he leaves Wonwoo standing there and walks off in his usual direction, hands shoving themselves deep into his coat pockets. The wind picks up while Wonwoo is trekking back to the dorm and he wonders if Soonyoung would’ve actually given up the scarf, but it’s a thought he shakes off right away. Jun is heading out the door right as Wonwoo walks down the hall to the room, and he winks at him as he passes, making a comment about the redness in his cheeks that Wonwoo doesn’t hear all the way.

 

When he goes into the room, he takes his jacket off and puts his stuff on the floor by his bed. Wonwoo stares into the mirror. The blush on his face is partly caused by the brisk weather and partly of his own accord, as he thinks about Soonyoung wrapping his scarf around his own neck. It’s a silly daydream; Wonwoo walks away from the mirror and wonders what’s possessed him today. Thoughts of paper balls, final projects, and knit scarves dance around in his head while he tries to get some homework done, and even though he wouldn’t admit it to Soonyoung, he knows it’ll be weird in a lab without him.

 

Wonwoo hopes Soonyoung enjoys his company as much as he enjoys his. More importantly, though, he hopes he never offers his scarf again, because his face still feels hot when he thinks about it, despite the chill outside.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Phenethylamine is an organic compound most commonly known as the “chemical of attraction,” since it is a stimulant that triggers the release of dopamine and norepinephrine in humans when they are falling in love._

 

‘let’s do our report at starbucks wonmoo.’

 

The text pops up on Wonwoo’s phone while he’s in his calculus lecture. At first, he thinks Soonyoung misspells his name on accident, but another text comes as he’s looking at the screen: five cow emojis. Nope, that answers it. Everything he does is definitely on purpose. Wonwoo tries to be discreet and replies.

 

‘Why there???’

 

‘change of atmosphere. plus it’s chilly out and i want hot chocolate.’

 

He smiles to himself. ‘Okay. When??’

 

‘tomorrow. usual time. just meet me at starbucks instead of the library :-)’

 

Wonwoo flips his phone over so the screen is face-down. His professor has written another example on the board while he wasn’t looking and he copies it down in his notes, not even bothering to think through solving it. His mind wanders to the conversation he’d just had; oddly enough, Wonwoo is now looking forward to doing their lab report more than he usually is. Perhaps a change of scenery would be nice. A hot drink is also welcome, especially considering the weather forecast shows light snow for tomorrow. Soonyoung—as full of bad ideas as he may be—is also full of good ones.

 

When the next day comes, Wonwoo finds himself putting an effort into his hair after he showers. It’s something he never does, always opting to leave his bangs as they are, but he parts them now, copying what he’d seen Jun do a million times. When his hair dries, he figures it doesn’t look bad at all; part of his forehead is exposed and he thinks he looks like he actually cares about how he looks.

 

Jun comes into the room as Wonwoo is deciding on what to wear. His roommate’s nose and ears are bright red, white flecks of snow on his clothes melting away as soon as they’re noticed. “Woah,” he says, kicking off his boots and setting them out in the hall to melt. “Who are you?”

 

“What are you talking about?” Wonwoo asks, looking through the shirts hanging up.

 

“What’s up with your hair?”

 

“I parted it.”

 

Jun shuts the door and walks up to him, arms crossed across his chest, leaning in to get a closer look. Wonwoo is worried he looks stupid. His roommate grins, though, which is a good sign. “It looks nice,” he says finally. Despite that, he reaches up and fixes his bangs for him, flicking a piece or two back into place. “What’s the occasion? You got a date?”

 

Wonwoo blinks. “I have a lab report,” he says dumbly.

 

“Oh,” Jun says, stepping away. He flops himself down on his bed, arms stretched out behind him. “Why are you getting all fancy, then?”

 

“I’m not,” Wonwoo defends himself, pulling a striped, long-sleeve shirt on. “I’m just getting dressed.”

 

“You’re totally trying!”

 

While his roommate teases him, Wonwoo brushes off the obvious: he is trying, but not for any reason he can think of. He sees Soonyoung all the time. He doesn’t need to dress to impress him. His lab partner has certainly already seen him at his worst, sick and dying in bed. “I’m trying to compete with a fashion icon,” he says sarcastically, putting light wash jeans on. “You said it yourself. Soonyoung is stylish.”

 

“Well,” Jun huffs, “you look nice.” Wonwoo turns and looks at him. “You’re going to want a coat, though. It’s freezing outside.”

 

“Thanks, Mom,” he says, thankful for the mindful suggestion. Wonwoo stuffs his feet into his brown, winter boots and ties up the laces. Hanging on one of the first hangers in the closet is one of Jun’s jackets; it’s thick denim and it looks very warm, so he holds it up. “Can I borrow this?”

 

“Sure. You’ll have to pay interest, though.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

Jun giggles. “No. Take it, I don’t care.”

 

Wonwoo puts the coat on and grabs his backpack, slinging a strap onto one shoulder. “I’ll see you later,” he says to Jun, who just gives him a lazy wave while he shuts the door.

 

“Have fun on your date!” he calls, and Wonwoo swallows the feeling of conviction in his throat, choosing not to fight. It isn’t a date. It’s two partners getting together at the Starbucks on campus, which Wonwoo always avoids because it’s a frequented first date spot for all the students who meet up with Tinder matches. He’s just seeing Soonyoung; there’s no reason to be nervous.

 

It’s snowing outside, a little more than flurries, Wonwoo thinks. It coats the ground and it sticks, making the entire campus look like it’s enclosed within a snowglobe being shaken up. Starbucks is past the library and inside the student center, so the walk takes around fifteen minutes, but he enjoys it, despite it being cold. He’ll be drinking hot chocolate in no time. When Wonwoo reaches the complex, he spots a familiar face through a slightly fogged-up window, and he finds himself smiling as he stomps the snow off his boots and goes inside.

 

The coffee shop is warm and comfortable, instantly soothing the rawness of the cold air when Wonwoo steps in. Acoustic music plays and the place smells amazing, like coffee beans and holiday spices. Soonyoung doesn’t notice he’s there until Wonwoo comes up to his table and offers a wave, sliding into the small, booth seat across from him. His partner is wearing a black turtleneck, and the small, hoop earring is sticking out above the dark color.

 

“I didn’t think you’d get here before me,” he greets, taking Jun’s coat off. Soonyoung looks at him for a moment, keeping his eyes on the top of Wonwoo’s head.

 

“You never style your hair.”

 

“I thought it looked nice,” Wonwoo says, uncertain of what Soonyoung’s comment is supposed to mean. The boy across from him smiles softly, though, still looking.

 

“It does.”

 

“So, lab report,” he switches the subject away from his appearance before he can get too self-conscious. “Since you already did most of the work, my job is just giving you the numbers, since there isn’t really an analysis part to this lab.”

 

Soonyoung moves his shoulders up and down excitedly. “I was right,” he says, grinning at himself. “Future Soonyoung is thanking past Soonyoung for being super on top of things.” He squeezes his eyes shut as he smiles at Wonwoo, who just laughs. “Before we start, I’ll get us drinks.” He gets up from his seat and stands at the side of the table. “What do you want? Hot chocolate?”

 

“Soonyoung, I can get my own—”

 

“I’m already up,” he insists, pressing on Wonwoo’s shoulders to make him sit back down once he tries to get up as well.

 

Wonwoo chooses not to be stubborn. He looks up at Soonyoung. “Fine,” he nods, “hot chocolate, please. Extra whipped cream.” His partner repeats his words and walks off to order. Wonwoo’s eyes trail him; he looks different today, but he can’t figure out why. Maybe it’s the confidence. He stands in line with his shoulders back and chest out, hand in a pocket like he’s posing. Soonyoung carries himself well. Wonwoo doesn’t realize he’s been staring at him until the subject of intrigue gives him a look. He coughs, shifting his eyes to the menu overhang to make it look like he wasn’t being a total weirdo.

 

Soonyoung comes back with their drinks, hot chocolate with extra whipped cream for Wonwoo, and hot chocolate with no whipped cream for himself.

 

Wonwoo reaches into his pants pocket to get his wallet, but Soonyoung protests. “You don’t have to pay me back,” he says, eyes serious.

 

“You just paid for my drink, I want to—”

 

He shakes his head. “Nope. Not necessary.” He nearly reaches across the table to swat the wallet out of Wonwoo’s hand.

 

“It is necessary, Soonyoung,” Wonwoo laughs. “Let me pay you back.”

 

“How about you just pay for the next date?”

 

Soonyoung sips from his steaming drink carefully, his smirk making Wonwoo freeze, bills still in his hand. He slides them slowly back into his wallet and then puts the whole thing back in his pocket while looking across the table. His partner is still trying to drink his hot chocolate, despite the liquid still being scorching.

 

“Date?” Wonwoo echoes, leaning back in his seat. He looks down at the table. Soonyoung, now giving up and letting his cup cool, drums his hands on the wood’s surface.

 

“I mean, unless you don’t want to refer to this as a date,” he recovers, looking nervous. “It doesn’t have to be a date. It’s just doing a lab report. I don’t know why I said date. Ignore me.”

 

Wonwoo, having let the word sink in, just smiles, deciding that it can be a date if he wants it to be, considering he did pay for the drinks and the two of them look nice enough to pass as functional adults grabbing coffee and not two eighteen-year-olds burning their tongues on hot chocolate while doing chemistry homework. “Soonyoung,” he interrupts, and his partner trails off mid-ramble. “You can call this a date.”

 

“It’s not weird to you?”

 

Wonwoo shrugs. “I mean, if you want it to be a date, it can be.”

 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

 

“I—I don’t know,” he stutters, twisting the cardboard holder around his cup. Wonwoo notices that his words don’t relax the situation. “I’ve never been on a date in my life. I don’t know what it constitutes.”

 

Soonyoung stops tapping his hands on the table and smiles, tilting his head. “You’ve never been on a date before? So, you’re telling me I’m taking your date virginity?”

 

Wonwoo’s face goes hot. “Lower your voice,” he hisses, blushing at the giggly way he says it. “Don’t say it like that, that’s weird.”

 

“But it’s true!”

 

“Fine,” he stresses. Wonwoo doesn’t know why he’s so nervous all of a sudden. It’s just Soonyoung. Perhaps that’s why. “Sure. Whatever.”

 

“Well,” Soonyoung says, folding his arms together on the table’s surface and leaning forward, “let’s finish this report so we can get on with this date.”

 

The work goes smoothly. They sip on their hot chocolates while Wonwoo gives Soonyoung the information from his notebook to plug into the various equations for wavelengths and frequencies. For some reason, time seems to pass much more slowly inside the coffee shop than it does in the library. Wonwoo wonders if it’s due to how aware he is of the boy across from him; he takes breaks from looking at his notebook to looking at Soonyoung while he does the math, biting his lip and tapping the tip of his pen against the side of his head while he thinks.

 

Wonwoo likes the way he gets so into things. He can insist time and time again that chemistry is no fun to him, but while he works on calculations, his face twists into concentration and he barely makes comments, instead opting to talk to himself about numbers he comes up with. By the time they finish, Wonwoo’s hot chocolate is gone and his appreciation for Soonyoung and his chemistry-fueled development arc is at an all-time high.

 

“That isn’t your jacket, is it?” Soonyoung poses the question to him as they walk out of Starbucks with their things, final lab report done at last. Wonwoo holds the door open for him and skips to walk beside him.

 

“How could you tell?” he smiles, looking down at himself. Soonyoung shrugs.

 

“It was a guess,” he admits. “It’s really nice. You don’t ever wear anything that looks that warm, just oversized sweatshirts.” Their pace is slow, so Wonwoo takes the opportunity to match his stride to that of his shorter partner.

 

“It’s Jun’s,” Wonwoo says. “It is nice, isn’t it? I don’t really have much of a style, but if I did, it’d be something like this.”

 

“Your style,” Soonyoung corrects him, holding up a knowing finger, “is comfortable. You always look like you swim in your clothes, but I’m jealous because it looks like you’re always wearing pajamas.”

 

“Hey!” Wonwoo fakes offense, pressing a hand to his heart. “The sweatshirts I wear aren’t that big on me.”

 

“You’re right,” his partner swings his arms as he walks, and all of a sudden, he pokes Wonwoo’s side, right under his ribcage. “You’re just lanky as hell.”

 

“Lankiness comes in handy.”

 

“How?”

 

Wonwoo smiles at him. They’re approaching a more open area, and the snow has been steadily falling for long enough so as to coat the grass with a few inches or so. Wonwoo stops abruptly and looks around off of the sidewalk before taking a few steps and then flopping down in the snow, instantly getting himself covered.

 

Soonyoung looks at him, horrified for a moment. “What the hell are you doing?”

 

Like a kid, Wonwoo laughs, waving his arms and moving his legs to make a shape in the snow. “I’m showing you how being lanky comes in handy. All my snow angels are giant.”

 

A moment later, Soonyoung flops down beside him, just far enough apart so that he can make his own snow angel. A few seconds later, they both get to their feet and step around their outlines back to the sidewalk. “Wow,” Wonwoo observes, brushing the snow off of himself and then helping Soonyoung. “You made a snow child.”

 

The size difference isn’t as evident when they’re both standing, but in the snow angels, it’s almost comical. Soonyoung’s hair is coated with snow and Wonwoo is compelled to get it out. They stand there on the sidewalk while other people pass by and laugh, some copying them a ways away and others just looking on to mock them. Wonwoo gently brushes the snowflakes out of Soonyoung’s bangs.

 

“Don’t call me a child,” he grumbles, batting his hands away. Wonwoo just laughs and starts walking again. “I’m an entire month older than you.”

 

“And I can still use you as an armrest,” he teases, lifting his arm up to rest it on Soonyoung’s shoulder while they walk.

 

“Yeah? Well, I’ll be using you as a footrest in a second,” Soonyoung threatens.

 

They both end up laughing, and Wonwoo takes his arm away and focuses his attention on not slipping all over the place while they walk back to the dorm, as the sidewalk is icy in places that the snow covers. He feels lighter than air; the snow on his clothes (Jun’s clothes, rather) makes his back wet, but he isn’t weighed down by it. Soonyoung chatters on beside him about being immature.

 

“Since when do you do stuff like that?” His partner hits his arm, but he’s still smiling. “Who are you and what have you done with the Wonwoo I know from lab?”

 

“This is Wonwoo from lab,” he states. “Wonwoo from lab used to be afraid of getting to know you.”

 

“Why?”

 

Wonwoo skids a little on an icy patch he can’t see and his reflexes force him to grab onto Soonyoung’s shoulder to fix himself. “I don’t know,” he admits, letting him go. “You seemed too cool for me.”

 

He knows that this inflates Soonyoung’s ego, and he throws his head back in recognition, exaggerated laugh deep in his chest. “I’m honored.” His expression goes softer, though, like he’s curious. “Why, though? Do I look cool?”

 

“Hmm, no,” Wonwoo says, and this earns him another slap to the arm. “I’m kidding, relax. Yeah, you do in a way. Your undercut and the earring you wear, how do I say this… they intimidated me, if I were to use one of your own words.”

 

The boy beside him whines. “How long will you hold that over me? I told you, I didn’t mean to say intimidating. I just… I don’t know, I just said a word.” His voice trails off and Wonwoo looks over.

 

“If you didn’t mean intimidating, what’d you mean?”

 

“It was just how I felt,” he sighs. The mood of the conversation shifts to something Wonwoo takes as being more serious, although Soonyoung’s face is still animated. “Like I said, you had this… aura.”

 

“You sound a lot like Jun right now,” Wonwoo jokes.

 

“Shut up. I’m trying to tell you, you know…”

 

They reach the dorm building and the snow is falling more obviously now that they’ve stopped walking. Soonyoung pauses, and Wonwoo stands there with his hands in the coat’s pockets, looking at him until he gets his words together. The nerves are long gone, now; Wonwoo doesn’t know why he had felt so uneasy earlier, but he realizes the snow might be making him calmer, since it gives him something to focus on. Flakes fall into their hair. Soonyoung looks around and then up to the sky, and Wonwoo waits for him to speak.

 

“What did you want to tell me?” he nudges him, curious.

 

“It’s stupid,” Soonyoung mutters, shifting back and forth on his feet. When Wonwoo raises an eyebrow, he motions that they should go inside, and then turns to walk away. “Come on, we’re going to turn into ice cubes out here. Let’s—”

 

Wonwoo, deciding that the snow is too pretty to leave, reaches forward and grabs Soonyoung’s hand when he tries to head the other way, and this gets him to stop. Both of them are freezing, but once someone starts a thought, Wonwoo finds that he can’t let it stop halfway. Soonyoung just looks back and forth between their joined hands and Wonwoo’s face; there’s a timid look in his eyes and his frown is confused, not at all sad.

 

“I feel like it’s something that bothers you,” Wonwoo comments, “because whenever I bring it up, you always try and retrace your steps.”

 

“What, that I said you were intimidating?”

 

He nods. “Yep. If you didn’t mean intimidating, what did you mean?” Wonwoo is very aware that his hand feels warmer holding onto Soonyoung’s, but the rest of him is close to shivering. Snow may be nice to look at it, but standing still while it falls is just not as appealing as the aesthetic makes it out to be.

 

Soonyoung meets his eyes, then looks to his left and right. They’re the only ones hanging around out here, the only ones crazy enough to still be outside. “Okay,” he huffs. “I didn’t mean intimidating. I meant cute.” The way he states it so simply and with his eyebrows furrowed makes Wonwoo laugh. “Don’t laugh at me!” Soonyoung snaps.

 

He holds it in. “I’m not,” Wonwoo says, shaking his head. “I just… that’s it? That’s what you meant?”

 

His partner hesitates, looking at their hands again. “Well, yeah, I guess,” he draws out. “You struck me as… I don’t know a word for it. The way you explained things to me, and the way you were so passionate about the subject, it was cute… I guess.” Soonyoung uses that phrase like salt. Is everything a guess? Wonwoo just smiles, aware of his heartbeat, and then suddenly pulls Soonyoung by the hand after him to get inside the dorm building. They shake the snow off themselves and Wonwoo realizes he still hasn’t said anything.

 

They go down the hall, past the entryway, the small kitchen, and the laundry room, and end up leaning against the wall outside the elevator. Soonyoung presses the button.

 

“You know,” Wonwoo says, “I think it’s cute how you do math.”

 

“How in the hell is math cute?”

 

They both laugh, and the elevator doors slide open for them to walk in. Wonwoo hits the buttons for the fourth and sixth floors. “It’s not,” he goes on. “Watching you work on calculations is, though. Your face gets all…” Wonwoo tries to imitate him, which just makes Soonyoung burst out laughing.

 

“Please tell me I don’t look like that when I do algebra.”

 

“Oh, be quiet. Sorry for trying to compliment you.”

 

“We can work on that,” Soonyoung says, bumping their shoulders together. The elevator stops at the fourth floor and Wonwoo is about to say goodbye, but Soonyoung gets off with him.

 

“Why are you—”

 

“Shh,” Soonyoung interrupts, this time grabbing Wonwoo’s hand and leading him down the hall toward his room. “This is a date. I have to walk you to the door or else it doesn’t count.”

 

Of course, Wonwoo remains passive while Soonyoung gets his mind set on something. “I’d rate this date a seven out of ten,” he says.

 

“Only a seven?”

 

“Considering I’ve never been on a date with a chem lab partner before,” Soonyoung stops in front of Wonwoo’s room and they stand on either side of the door frame while Wonwoo gives his justification, “I have no standard, but this felt like a seven.”

 

Soonyoung lets go of his hand. “Any thoughts on our final project?” He wiggles his eyebrows and Wonwoo shakes his head.

 

“Not yet,” he says. “I think the stuff we learned in the lecture period about brain chemicals was super interesting, so maybe I can come up with something for that. Oh! Or, we could do something with acids and bases, since our lab on that wasn’t really as in-depth as I’d hoped it’d be. So if we do that—”

 

He’s rambling. For a moment, he forgets Soonyoung is standing right in front of him, but his date takes Wonwoo’s train of thought and pretty much derails it, because he leans forward on his toes and puts both hands on Wonwoo’s shoulders, faltering him mid-sentence.

 

“Wonwoo,” he says gently, “I don’t understand when you talk chemistry to me.”

 

Soonyoung moves forward quick enough for Wonwoo to wonder what he’s doing, but he squints his eyes closed at the last second because he gets _too_ close, hands still resting on his shoulders. Wonwoo feels his nose bump into his own and he nearly laughs, but before he can, Soonyoung kisses him. It’s awkward and very fast, and Wonwoo has to touch his lips to make sure they’re real, but Soonyoung takes a step back and his entire face is red, ears included.

 

“You think about that project, okay?” Soonyoung taps him on the shoulder and then nearly sprints down the hallway toward the elevator, leaving Wonwoo in his dust, hand still on his mouth.

 

His hand turns the handle on his door absentmindedly, all thoughts gone. The door opens with a thump, and when Wonwoo looks inside, Jun is holding his forehead.

 

“That hurt!” his roommate yells, backing away from the door.

 

“What were you—how did—why are you—”

 

“Take your time, buddy,” Jun reassures him, smiling devilishly. “Use your words.”

 

Wonwoo takes the hand away from his lips and stares at Jun, who looks too smug for any words Wonwoo might have on hand. “Were you seriously just watching us through the peephole?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

With a sigh, he takes his coat off and makes sure it isn’t too wet before hanging it back up with the rest of Jun’s things in the closet. “You’re kidding me,” he says. Jun doesn’t look like he’s kidding. No shame, no shame at all. “You’re such a weirdo!”

 

“I wanted to know how it was going out there!” Jun’s defense is weak, but Wonwoo lets it go, as his mind has no capacity for mean thoughts at the moment. Soonyoung definitely just kissed him. Wonwoo is not dreaming. That was a kiss, right? His eyes had been squeezed shut. Wonwoo doesn’t really know what to make of the situation, but he does know that he isn’t asleep and his lab partner had just totally, without a doubt, kissed him in the hallway, of all places. When he was a kid, did he think his first kiss would happen in an all men's dorm while his roommate watched from the peephole inside? No, not really. He can’t make sense of it.

 

“Why did he do that?” he wonders aloud, taking his boots off and putting them against the wall to dry.

 

“Do what?” Jun chimes in, leaning his weight against the closet door. “Kiss you?”

 

“No,” he says, then corrects himself. “Well, yeah. He just… he just kissed me,” Wonwoo looks at Jun like he’s supposed to quell his thoughts.

 

“Did you not want him to?” His roommate’s demeanor changes instantly; Wonwoo brushes past him to sit down on his bed. “I’ll go beat him up if he did something you didn’t want.”

 

“Calm down,” Wonwoo shuts him up. “That’s not what I mean.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Wonwoo hears what Jun says, but focuses on taking his phone out and typing out a text to Jihoon, the only person he feels confident in with the current circumstance. He hesitates before he sends it, and once he does, he stares at the screen for a minute, knowing full well that Jihoon is a famously bad texter and won’t reply for hours, at least.

 

‘Jihoon, I think my lab partner has a crush on me’

With the next two weeks comes stress that Wonwoo feels but doesn’t acknowledge. Finals loom in front of him and the prospect of being done for the semester is dancing just beyond that, tempting him with thoughts of the holidays and being home for a month. Of course, on top of all this, he has to try and act normal in front of Soonyoung, whom he sees almost every other day when they get together to work on their final projects for lab.

 

Wonwoo decides on brain chemicals, focusing on phenylethylamine, a fancy, hard-to-pronounce name for the chemical that’s surely been camping out in the corners of his own brain. The first time he sees Soonyoung after the day he kissed him, they act as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened, reverting back to the usual I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I behavior that Wonwoo is comfortable with.

 

Every time he sees Soonyoung’s face, though, he can’t help but think of how it would feel to kiss him and actually remember the sensation. All he recalls is the spike of adrenaline and then the pit of confusion immediately following. Wonwoo hates being an eighteen-year-old male. They’re so terrible at understanding emotions.

 

The two of them are their usual selves, but Wonwoo finds himself gravitating closer. He starts wanting to be in contact with Soonyoung, some part of him always near him, hoping the effort to be handsier isn’t annoying. It goes on throughout their study days before finals week; Wonwoo takes any excuse to put his arm around Soonyoung’s shoulder, prompting Soonyoung to fight back at him and take it in stride, doing the same so that they’re spending more time provoking each other than they are working on their Powerpoint slides.

 

By the time they finally put the finishing touches on the project, Wonwoo feels like he’s looked at too many different fonts, too many presentation rubrics, and too many research articles explaining how phenylethylamine works. He and Soonyoung leave their tiny library room for the last time this semester, and it feels very odd to know that now, his partner will take a completely different path. Wonwoo makes a mental note to stop referring to him as such, now that it isn’t the case anymore.

 

“We’re done,” Soonyoung says, reverting to full volume once they exit the library, heading in the direction of the dorm.

 

“We’re done,” Wonwoo echoes. He gets the urge to link his pinky with Soonyoung’s, and he does so uncontestedly. “Now, all we do is present tomorrow.”

 

Their conversation dwindles into talk of Christmas plans. Wonwoo learns that Soonyoung has a smaller extended family than him, and that it’s usually just his parents and his siblings at his house for dinner and presents. Wonwoo tells him horror stories of cringy, old relatives that try and pinch his cheeks, much to Soonyoung’s surprise.

 

“You barely have cheeks,” he laments, reaching up and pinching them himself, making Wonwoo’s eyes water.

 

Soonyoung leaves him be once they get to their building, and Wonwoo notices that he’s been a lot calmer as of late, always listening to him fully, never butting in or being very loud. He brushes it off as stress; they both have finals to worry about and Wonwoo doesn’t need to be preoccupied with thoughts of kissing anyone until he’s certain in his mastery of class material.

 

Fortunately, the week passes without a hitch. The chemistry presentation goes swimmingly, and their professor even comments on the visible chemistry between them, and they both share an embarrassed look in front of the class as they accept her comments. Wonwoo sits through all of his finals and then finds himself alone in the lobby of the science building on Friday afternoon, having just left his chemistry lecture final before anyone else. Sitting in one of the plush chairs in the otherwise plain space, Wonwoo drifts off, because the weight has left his shoulders and it finally hits him that the semester is done. Finished. Over.

 

He doesn’t know how much later it is when he opens his eyes again, but he sits hunched over and straightens himself when he realizes who occupies the chair across from his.

 

Soonyoung, seeing that Wonwoo has now opened his eyes, smiles. “Tired?”

 

Wonwoo nods. “I took a two-hour final earlier. What do you think?”

 

“I saw you out here when I got out of my physics final,” he says, rubbing his knees. “I figured I’d wait around until you sensed I was here.”

 

“You’re a goofball.”

 

“I, uh, also have something for you,” Soonyoung pulls out a piece of folded up paper from his coat pocket and reaches out to give it to him. Wonwoo takes it and looks it over.

 

“What is this?” he asks.

 

“Unfold it, dumbass.”

 

He does. There’s a pixelated image of what Wonwoo thinks is spaghetti, but he squints at it and realizes it’s flowers. Roses. Looking up at Soonyoung, he’s watching him expectantly, waiting for words. Gears turn in Wonwoo’s brain, jogging his memory.

 

“Is this from Jun?”

 

“What? No? It’s from me. He told me you thought roses were romantic, so I was going to get you the real thing,” he talks fast, voice animated. “The flower shop around here said they only have real flowers in the spring and summer since they grow them all themselves and it’s obviously the fucking Arctic tundra outside,” Soonyoung motions to the window, where the snow on the ground is visible from where they sit. “So, you’re going to have to settle for a picture I printed out at the library.”

 

Wonwoo turns the page over in his hands a few times, wondering how his life got this ridiculous, and then realizes he doesn’t know how to answer.

 

“So,” Soonyoung leans forward, “it’s the thought that counts, right?”

 

“You have a crush on me, right?” he counters.

 

Wonwoo’s question comes out of nowhere and he feels stupid for asking, but Soonyoung just stares at him and blinks, expression blank. “That,” he says, “is probably the dumbest thing you have ever said to me.”

 

“I knew it!” Wonwoo gets to his feet as he laughs, pointing a finger. “I totally knew it.”

 

“You totally didn’t,” Soonyoung gets up as well. “ _I_ knew from the second you turned around the first lab period and looked like you wanted to beat me with a shoe that I was in deep shit,” he says. “There’s no way you knew all along.”

 

“I was oblivious, wasn’t I?”

 

The other boy laughs, sarcasm and genuine happiness combined. “Wow, Wonwoo, what gave it away? I literally made the mistake of kissing you in the damn hallway and—”

 

“Wait,” Wonwoo interjects, “you thought that was a mistake?”

 

Soonyoung looks guilty. “Well, no, I definitely wanted to, considering the gay panic was getting harder and harder to hide every time you’d so much as look at me. Doing it in such a gross place was a mistake. I was just…” he trails off, then holds up an enlightened finger, “desperate to get it over with. Plus,” he adds, “you wouldn’t shut up about stuff I couldn’t follow.”

 

Wonwoo looks down at the paper in his hands again. “This is a confession, then?”

 

“No, I’m just telling you I developed fake feelings on a massive nerd throughout the course of the semester. All the times we worked together?” he scoffs. “That was totally fake. Even me kissing you was fake. All fake.”

 

“Then I guess I won’t tell you I feel the same, then.”

 

Soonyoung wipes the mocking expression from his face. “Really?”

 

Despite still not knowing how to feel the things he feels, Wonwoo keeps glancing at the picture he holds. It’s such an odd way to do things, but then again, he shouldn’t expect anything less. “I suppose,” he says. “And I’m sorry for being blind.”

 

Grateful that it’s late in the afternoon and the science building is pretty much empty, Wonwoo takes the opportunity to grab Soonyoung’s face while still holding the pathetic excuse for a confession. He’s smiling too much to make it a serious kiss, but he tries anyway, pressing his lips to Soonyoung’s, who smiles back and then ends up ruining it with a giggle. How fitting, he thinks, to kiss an annoying, stubborn, mess of a lab partner in the industrial-looking science building where he’d almost lost his temper months ago.

 

Honestly, Wonwoo is glad that Soonyoung doesn’t plan on taking any more labs with him, because trying to focus on experimental procedures while being partnered with someone you realize complements you perfectly could result in lots of broken glassware.

 

Maybe, just maybe, Wonwoo might even learn how to love calculus next semester.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 


End file.
